i/n 


LETTERS 


OF 


JOHN    RICHARD    GREEN 


tp 

Letters 

of 

John  Richard  Green 


EDITED    BY 

LESLIE  STEPHEN 


MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LIMITED 

NEW    YORK  :    THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
I9OI 

All  right!  reserved 


P/13 

G7/I4- 


Copyright  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

I  MUST  ask  readers  of  these  letters  to  take  for  granted 
that  there  have  been  sufficient  reasons  for  the  long 
delay  in  their  appearance.  A  few  words  will  explain 
my  own  share  in  the  present  publication.  When  Mrs, 
Green  asked  me  to  act  as  editor  I  replied  that  I 
thought  myself  disqualified  by  the  slightness  of  my 
acquaintance  with  the  writer.  When,  however,  Mrs. 
Green,  after  considering  this  and  other  objections,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  under  all  the  circumstances  the 
proposed  arrangement  would  be  the  most  satisfactory 
to  her  I  could  no  longer  hesitate.  I  accepted  the 
position,  and  have  tried  to  do  the  work  to  the  best  of 
my  ability.  I  was  encouraged  by  one  obvious  reflec- 
tion. Any  editor,  however  well  qualified  for  the  task 
must  have  accepted  in  the  main  the  restriction  which  in 
my  own  case  was  imperative  ;  namely,  that  wherever 
it  was  possible  the  story  should  be  told  in  Green's  own 
words  and  the  editor  remain  in  the  background.  I 
have  not  been  able,  however,  to  confine  myself  entirely 
to  annotations.  The  full  significance  of  the  letters  can 
only  be  appreciated  by  readers  who  bear  in  mind  the 
circumstances  under  which  they  were  written.  I  have 
therefore  found  it  necessary  to  write  introductory 


vi  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 

narratives    in    explanation  of  Green's  position  during 
successive  periods  of  his  life.    These  are  chiefly  founded 
upon    information   given   by  Mrs.   Green.      She    took 
down    some    autobiographical   reminiscences    from   her 
husband's  lips  ;    she  is  in  possession  of  various  note- 
books containing  a  fragmentary  diary,  and  other  jot- 
tings which  illustrate  his  position  ;   and  she  collected 
information    from  his  friends  and   family.      The    last 
part  of  my   narrative  embodies,   as  will  be  seen,  in- 
formation which  she   alone    could   have    given.      She 
has,  moreover,  supervised  the  whole  work,   and  made 
many  invaluable  suggestions  and  corrections.    Although 
therefore  I  am  responsible  for  all  that  I  have  said  it 
will,  I  hope,  be  clearly  understood  that  any  gratitude 
which  may  be  due  for  the  help  afforded    towards  an 
appreciation  of  the   letters  is  due  mainly  to    her.     I 
have   also  been    helped   in   my  task   by  articles    con- 
tributed   by   Mr.   Bryce  to  Macmillans   Magazine  of 
May    1883;    by    Mr.   Philip    Lyttelton    Cell    to    the 
Fortnightly  Review  of  May  1883  ;  by  the  late  H.   R. 
Haweis  to  the   Contemporary  Review  of  May   1883  ; 
by  E.  A.  Freeman  to  the  British   Quarterly  of  July 
1883;    by    the    Rev.     W.    J.    Loftie    to    the    New 
Princeton  Review  of  November    1888  ;  and  by  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward    to  the  Associate  (published   for  the 
"Passmore  Edwards  Settlement")   of  October    1898. 
Mr.  Humphry  Ward  and  Professor  Boyd  Dawkins  have 
kindly  entrusted   me   with  manuscript  reminiscences  ; 
and  1  have  especially  to  thank  Professor  Boyd  Dawkins 
for  other  help  of  various  kinds. 

Most  of  the  early  letters  are  addressed  to  Professor 


PREFACE  vii 

Boyd  Dawkins,  and  of  the  later  to  E.  A.  Freeman. 
Grateful  acknowledgment  for  other  letters  is  due  to 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  Mrs.  Creighton,  Miss 
von  Glehn,  the  Rev.  Canon  Taylor,  Mrs.  a  Court, 
Mrs.  W.  H.  Wright  (formerly  Mrs.  Churchill 
Babington),  and  Miss  Kate  Norgate.  Many  letters 
written  to  other  correspondents  have  unfortunately 
disappeared  ;  and  readers  must  remember  that  a 
fragmentary  collection  cannot  give  a  complete,  though, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  it  may  give  a  very  vivid  picture  of 
a  surprisingly  many-sided  character  and  intellect. 

LESLIE  STEPHEN. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
EARLY  LIFE  ....  ! 

PART  II 

CLERICAL  CAREER  .  51 

PART  III 

THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"    .  .  209 

PART  IV 

LAST  YEARS  .  .  384 

SERMON 485 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  ....  497 

INDEX  505 


LIST   OF   PLATES 

Portrait  of  John  Richard  Green  from  a  photograph   by 

Fratelli  Alinari,  Firenze,  1869      ....    Frontispiece 

Portrait    of    John    Richard    Green    from    a    collodion 

print To  face  p.  i 

Portrait   of  John   Richard   Green,  engraved   by  G.  J. 

Stodart  from  a  picture  by  F.  Sandys     .         .         .        „       384 


PART   1 

EARLY    LIFE 

JOHN  RICHARD  GREEN  was  born  at  Oxford  on  Decem- 
ber 12,  1837.  The  place  of  his  birth  had,  as  Freeman 
used  to  assert,  an  effect  upon  his  sympathies.  In  the 
eighth  century  Oxford  had  been  annexed  by  Offa  to  the 
kingdom  of  Mercia.  Green  therefore  considered  him- 
self to  hold  a  "  hereditary  brief"  for  the  Mercian  leaders. 
Had  he  been  born  in  Abingdon  he  would  have  been 
a  Wessex  man  and  taken  a  different  view.  How  this 
may  be  I  know  not,  but  believers  in  race  would  find 
it  hard  to  trace  any  of  Green's  characteristics  to  the 
ancient  possessors  of  his  birthplace.  Though  no  one 
was  more  thoroughly  English  in  his  sympathies,  no 
one  had  less  of  the  quality  connoted  by  the  "  Anglo 
Saxon  "  of  ordinary  discourse.  Neither  can  he  be  taken 
as  a  clear  instance  of  the  inheritance  of  genius  from 
less  remote  ancestors.  If  indeed  any  previous  Greens 
possessed  genius,  the  position  of  the  family  was  not 
favourable  to  its  manifestation.  His  father,  Richard 
Green,  was  son  of  a  tailor,  and  is  described  as  a 
"registrar  and  maker  of  silk  gowns  for  Fellows." 
His  mother's  maiden  name  was  Hurdis,  and  she 
was  probably  related  to  the  Hurdis  who  was  pro- 
fessor of  poetry  at  Oxford  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  echoed  Cowper  in  long-forgotten  strains. 
Green  always  spoke  of  her  as  a  woman  of  considerable 

B 


2  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

ability,  and  believed  himself  to  have  inherited  some- 
thing from  her.  The  only  member  of  the  family 
who  had  literary  tastes  was  his  father's  brother,  John. 
He  is  said  to  have  lent  books,  including  Pilgrim  s 
Progress,  to  his  nephew.  John,  however,  was  sus- 
pected of  "  atheism,"  and  the  father  forbade  a  con- 
tinuance of  loans  which  might  have  included  authors 
of  more  dangerous  tendency.  A  quarrel  was  produced 
by  this  interference.  John  dropped  his  family,  refused 
to  speak  to  his  nephew,  and  left  his  money  to  a 
stranger.  The  Richard  Greens  had  no  special  cultiva- 
tion, except  that  a  strong  love  of  music  was  common  to 
them  all.  John  Richard  had  a  sister,  Adelaide,  older 
than  himself,  who  lived  with  an  aunt,  married  to  a 
Mr.  Castle,  a  hatter  in  the  High  Street.  A  brother, 
Richard,  and  a  sister,  Annie,  were  his  juniors  by  two 
and  eight  years  respectively.  The  father  was  a  man  of 
great  tenderness  and  simplicity.  John  was  constantly 
asking  him  questions,  to  which  the  ordinary  reply  was, 
"  I  do  not  know,  but  I  will  try  to  find  out."  Though 
not  prosperous,  he  was  determined  to  do  everything  in 
his  power  to  secure  a  good  education  for  his  children. 
The  elder  boy  was  sent,  when  a  little  over  eight,  to 
Magdalen  College  School.  The  father  died  of  consump- 
tion in  November  1852;  and  the  eldest  daughter,  to 
whom  Green  was  passionately  attached,  was  at  the  same 
time  on  her  death-bed.  The  family  was  broken  up. 
The  mother  had  inherited  a  small  income,  and  retired 
to  a  small  village  in  Hertfordshire  where  she  had  to  live 
in  the  strictest  economy.  The  little  money  left  by  the 
father  was  made  over  to  the  Castles,  to  be  spent  upon 
the  education  of  the  children,  whom  they  undertook  to 
provide  with  board  and  lodging.  The  Castles  appear 
to  have  been  sensible  and  substantially  kind  ;  but  not 
given  to  any  warm  demonstrations  of  affection. 


i  EARLY  LIFE  3 

Meanwhile,  though  little  favoured  by  outward  cir- 
cumstances, Green  had  already  given  proof  of  a  remark- 
able intellectual  development.  I  can,  fortunately,  give 
the  most  authentic  record  of  the  impressions  made  during 
his  early  life  from  a  letter  written  by  himself  in  1873. 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  LONDON,  W., 
November  4,  1873. 

It  is  strange  how  much  I  know  of  your  life,  and  how 
little  you  know  of  mine  !  I  see  you  now  in  your  girl- 
hood as  I  saw  you  first,  not  indeed  clearly  as  I  see 
M.,  but  still  with  a  wonderful  distinctness  ;  but  what 
would  you  recognise  of  the  pale-faced,  grave-looking 
boy  of  eighteen  which  my  first  photograph  recalls  to 
me,  or  of  the  impulsive,  sickly  little  fellow  who  figures 
in  my  school-boy  memories  ? 

They  are  my  first  memories.  I  recall  little  or 
nothing  of  childhood  beyond  a  morbid  shyness,  a  love 
of  books,  a  habit  of  singing  about  the  house,  a  sense  of 
being  weaker  and  smaller  than  other  boys.  Our  home 
was  not  a  happy  one — the  only  gleam  of  light  in  it  was 
my  father's  love  for  and  pride  in  me.  He  was  always 
very  gentle  and  considerate  ;  he  brought  me  up  by  love 
and  not  by  fear,  and  always  hated  to  hear  of  punishment 
and  blows.  I  was  fourteen  when  he  died,  but  I  recall 
little  of  him  save  this  vague  tenderness  ;  a  walk  when 
he  encouraged  me  to  question  him  "  about  everything  "  ; 
his  love  of  my  voice — a  clear,  weak,  musical  child's 
voice — and  of  my  musical  ear  and  faculty  for  catching 
tunes  ;  and  his  pride  in  my  quickness  and  the  mass  of 
odd  things  which  I  knew.  Looking  back  on  the  traits 
of  his  character  which  I  recall,  I  see  that  he  was  a  weak 
rather  than  a  strong  man,  save  in  the  strength  of  his  love  ; 
but  I  can  never  honour  him  too  much,  for  his  whole 
thought  was  of  his  children,  and  above  all  of  me.  We 
were  poor,  but  he  was  resolved  that  I  should  have  a 
good  education  ;  and  if  I  have  done  anything  in  the 
world  since,  it  is  to  that  resolve  of  his  that  I  owe 


4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

it.  I  recall  not  a  single  harsh  word  or  look — his 
temper  indeed  was  sweet  and  sunny  save  when  it  was 
overcast  by  the  troubles  of  his  life  ;  but  I  recall  dimly 
instance  after  instance  when  he  encouraged  me  in  my 
love  of  books,  or  shielded  me  from  the  harsh  rebukes 
of  people  who  could  not  understand  my  absent,  shy, 
unboyish  ways. 

Books  were  my  passion.  I  can  recall  now  my  first 
discovery  of  Don  Quixote,  and  the  delight  with  which 
I  hoarded  a  stray  volume  of  Hume  which  wandered 
into  the  children's  room,  and  contained  his  character  of 
Elizabeth.  When  I  was  writing  my  own  character  of 
her  the  other  day  I  wondered  whether  in  the  days  to 
come  some  shy,  absent  boy  would  find  in  it  the  delight 
I  found  in  Hume's.  I  cared  nothing  for  poetry  in 
childhood  ;  the  only  imaginative  element  which  found 
its  way  to  me  through  books  were  the  allegories  of  the 
High  Church  writers  of  the  day,  and  I  don't  remember 
caring  very  much  for  them.  But  a  child's  life  needs 
no  poetry  from  books,  for  life  is  all  mystery  to  it ;  and 
one  of  the  few  scenes  which  stand  out  vividly  from  the 
dim  background  of  those  childish  fears  is  my  first  sight 
of  a  funeral, — the  boom  of  the  bell  from  the  church  tower ; 
the  group  gathered  at  its  base  amidst  the  rank  grass 
and  the  big  dock-leaves  ;  the  broken,  fitful  phases  of  the 
parson's  voice  as  it  floated  up  to  me  ;  the  mound  of  red 
earth  ;  the  thud  of  the  clod  upon  the  coffin.  I  see  them 
still,  the  little  group  breaking  slowly  up,  the  sexton 
filling  in  the  grave  and  then  going  away,  and  then  the 
empty  churchyard,  and  the  strange  questionings  in  my 
own  child-mind  about  death.  Bells  had  their  poetry 
for  me  from  the  first,  as  they  still  have,  and  the  Oxford 
peals  would  always  fill  me  with  a  strange  sense  of  delight. 
And  music  in  any  shape  was  the  pleasure  of  pleasures. 
One  of  my  bitterest  bursts  of  tears  was  when  a  nurse 
punished  me  for  some  childish  freak  by  forbidding  me 
to  join  in  the  hymns  at  church.  I  remember  now  the 
stair  where  I  and  my  wee  brother  Dick  used  to  sit  and 
sing  the  chants  we  caught  up  on  a  Sunday,  I  extempor- 


i  EARLY  LIFE  5 

ising  a  child's  "second,"  with  all  the  gravity  in  the 
world.  And  then  there  was  the  awe  of  listening  to  one 
of  the  college  choirs  and  hearing  the  great  organ  at  New 
College  or  Magdalen  ! 

But  all  distinct  memory,  as  I  said,  begins  with  my 
Magdalen  schooldays.  When  I  entered  the  Grammar 
School,  which  was  then  in  a  small  room  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  the  college,  I  must  have  been  a  little  over  eight 
years  old,  and  I  remained  there  till  I  was  nearly  fifteen. 
Magdalen  was  like  a  new  world  to  me.  At  first  my 
shyness  made  me  feel  dazed  among  so  many  strange 
faces  and  rough  boy-ways ;  but  I  was  soon  Happy 
enough,  and  the  new  fun  of  games,  small  and  weak  as  I 
was,  carried  all  shyness  away.  I  was  never  worth  much 
at  hockey  or  football,  and  at  cricket  I  was  all  but  useless 
for  my  short-sightedness,  but  I  liked  the  rush  and  ex- 
citement of  the  playground  ;  and  I  didn't  shirk,  because 
I  was  too  proud  to  shirk,  the  kicks  and  the  "scrim- 
mage." All  that  innerness  of  life,  that  utter  blindness 
to  outer  things  which  leaves  my  childhood  such  a  blank 
to  me,  disappeared  with  Magdalen.  The  college  was  a 
poem  in  itself;  its  dim  cloisters,  its  noble  chapel,  its 
smooth  lawns,  its  park  with  the  deer  browsing  beneath 
venerable  elms,  its  "  walks  "  with  "  Addison's  walk  "  in 
the  midst  of  them,  but  where  we  boys  thought  less  of 
Addison  than  of  wasps'  nests  and  craw-fishing.  Of  all 
the  Oxford  colleges  it  was  the  stateliest  and  the  most 
secluded  from  the  outer  world,  and  though  I  can  laugh 
now  at  the  indolence  and  uselessness  of  the  collegiate 
life  of  my  boy-days,  my  boyish  imagination  was  over- 
powered by  the  solemn  services,  the  white-robed  choir, 
the  long  train  of  divines  and  fellows,  and  the  president — 
moving  like  some  mysterious  dream  of  the  past  among 
the  punier  creatures  of  the  present.  He  was  a  wonder- 
fully old  man, — over  ninety,  indeed  he  died  on  the  very 
verge  of  a  hundred, — the  last  man  in  Oxford  who  ever 
wore  a  wig.  He  had  seen  Dr.  Johnson  going  up  the 
steps  of  University,  and  standing  astride  over  the 
kennel  which  then  ran  down  the  High  Street,  lost  in 


6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

thought.1  We  boys  used  to  stand  overawed  as  the  old 
man  passed  by,  the  keen  eyes  looking  out  of  the  white, 
drawn  face,  and  feel  as  if  we  were  looking  on  some 
one  from  another  world.  Once,  when  I  won  a  prize  he 
gave,  the  old  man  shook  me  by  the  hand  and  told  me  I 
was  a  clever  boy.  His  voice  was  full  and  imposing— 
but  it  is  odd  to  think  now  that  I  ever  shook  hands  with 
a  man  who  had  seen  Dr.  Johnson. 

May  morning,  too,  was  a  burst  of  poetry  every  year 
of  my  boyhood.  Before  the  Reformation  it  had  been 
customary  to  sing  a  mass  at  the  moment  of  sunrise  on 
the  ist  of  May,  and  some  time  in  Elizabeth's  reign 
this  mass  was  exchanged  for  a  hymn  to  the  Trinity. 
At  first  we  used  to  spring  out  of  bed  and  gather  in  the 
gray  of  dawn  on  the  top  of  the  college  tower,  where 
choristers  and  singing -men  were  already  grouped  in 
their  surplices.  Beneath  us,  all  wrapt  in  the  dim  mists 
of  a  spring  morning,  lay  the  city,  the  silent  reaches  of 
Cherwell,  the  great  commons  of  Cowley  marsh  and 
Bullingdon  now  covered  with  houses,  but  then  a  desolate 
waste.  There  was  a  long  hush  of  waiting  just  before 
five,  and  then  the  first  bright  point  of  sunlight  gleamed 
out  over  the  horizon  ;  below,  at  the  base  of  the  tower,  a 
mist  of  discordant  noises  from  the  tin  horns  of  the  town 
boys  greeted  its  appearance,  and  above,  in  the  stillness, 
rose  the  soft,  pathetic  air  of  the  hymn  "  Te  Deum 
Patrem  colimus."  As  it  closed,  the  sun  was  fully  up, 
surplices  were  thrown  ofF,  and  with  a  burst  of  gay 
laughter  the  choristers  rushed  down  the  little  tower- 
stair,  and  flung  themselves  on  the  bell-ropes,  "jangling  " 
the  bells  in  rough  mediaeval  fashion  till  the  tower  shook 
from  side  to  side.  And  then,  as  they  were  tired,  came 
the  ringers  ;  and  the  "jangle"  died  into  one  of  those 
"  peals,"  change  after  change,  which  used  to  cast  such 
a  spell  over  my  boyhood. 

All  was  not  fun  or  poetry  in  these  early  schooldays. 
The  old  brutal  flogging  was  still  in  favour,  and  the  old 

1  Green  often  told  this  story  about  Routh  (1755-1854),  and  added  his  words, 
"  None  of  us  dared  to  interrupt  the  meditations  of  the  great  lexicographer." 


i  EARLY  LIFE  7 

stupid  system  of  forcing  boys  to  learn  by  rote.  I  was 
set  to  learn  Latin  grammar  from  a  grammar  in  Latin  ! 
and  a  flogging  every  week  did  little  to  help  me.  I  was 
simply  stupefied, — for  my  father  had  never  struck  me, 
and  at  first  the  cane  hurt  me  like  a  blow, — but  the 
"  stupid  stage "  soon  came,  and  I  used  to  fling  away 
my  grammar  into  old  churchyards,  and  go  up  for  my 
"  spinning  "  as  doggedly  as  the  rest.  Everything  had 
to  be  learned  by  memory,  and  by  memory  then,  as  now, 
I  could  learn  nothing.  How  I  picked  up  Latin  Heaven 
knows  ;  but  somehow  I  did  pick  it  up,  and  when  we 
got  to  books  where  head  went  for  something,  I  began 
to  rise  fast  among  my  fellow-schoolboys.  But  I  really 
hated  my  work,  and  my  mind  gained  what  it  gained 
not  from  my  grammars  and  construing,  but  from  an 
old  school  library  which  opened  to  me  pleasures  I  had 
never  dreamed  of.  "  Travels "  were  the  fairyland  of 
this  time  of  my  life,  and  I  used  to  forget  all  my 
"  spinnings  "  in  the  [company]  of  Bruce  or  Marco  Polo. 
Now,  too,  burst  on  me  for  the  first  time  the  charm  of 
fiction — and  hour  after  hour  passed  away  as  I  sate  buried 
in  the  glories  of  Ivanhoe  or  trembling  over  the  gloomy 
mysteries  of  Sir  Sintram. 

Forgive  all  this  loitering  over  the  long  years  of  my 
boyhood.  I  was  but  ten  as  yet ;  but  the  two  years  from 
eight  to  ten  are  as  distinct  as  all  before  them  is  dim, 
and  in  recalling  them  there  is  to  me,  at  least,  the 
pleasure  of  one  who  at  last  discovers  himself. 

The  following  is  from  another  letter  : — 

In  this,  as  in  all  the  other  memories  of  my  child- 
hood, I  find  myself  alone.  I  had  no  playmates,  none 
at  least  that  I  can  recall.  My  sisters  were  seldom  at 
home,  my  brother  but  a  cherry-cheeked  infant.  Play 
indeed  had  little  charm  for  me.  I  was  soon  tired  by  a 
run,  and  too  weak  and  pettish  for  the  rougher  horse- 
jokes  of  stronger  boys.  A  strange  mania  for  reading 
devoured  me — I  say  strange,  for  the  home -store  of 
books  was  a  very  tiny  one  and  chiefly  religious,  and  the. 


8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Pilgrim's  Progress  and  a  ponderous  Life  of  Christ  were 
only  varied  by  a  few  stray  numbers,  left  by  some  pedlar, 
of  Don  Quixote.  But  a  stroke  of  good  fortune  had 
opened  up  for  me  an  inexhaustible  treasure. 

I  may  fill  up  a  few  details  from  memoranda  pre- 
served by  his  family  and  some  notes  made  by  himself. 
Green  was  hardly  expected  to  survive  infancy,  and  was 
from  the  first  fragile  and  excitable.  The  delicacy  was 
increased  by  a  mistaken  attempt  to  apply  a  "hardening" 
system.  His  temper  was  quick,  and  he  sometimes 
startled  his  companions  by  fits  of  passion  which,  how- 
ever, always  passed  off  without  degenerating  into 
sulkiness.  Various  anecdotes  indicate  his  absorption 
in  books.  He  came  back  from  school  book  in  hand, 
and  "  knocking  his  head  against  the  lamp-posts."  He 
found  a  quiet  corner  under  the  roof  of  his  father's 
house  to  which  he  could  retire  to  read.  Once  he  took 
his  little  sister  there  and  forgot  her  in  his  studies.  She 
crawled  into  a  dangerous  position  on  the  parapet,  and  was 
rescued  by  her  father,  who  fainted  from  the  excitement 
and  forbade  the  further  use  of  the  retreat.  Green  was 
sometimes  exiled  to  a  garret  in  which  there  were  some 
books.  He  found  ample  consolation  in  reading ;  and 
tried  to  entice  his  brother  to  the  same  source  of  comfort 
by  painting  the  pictures  in  Hume's  history.  He  would 
also  keep  his  brother  awake  by  long  stories  continued  from 
night  to  night.  His  brother  was  sent  to  another  school 
and  did  not  share  his  tastes,  and  as  his  elder  sister  Jived 
elsewhere  he  was  in  an  isolated  position  at  home.  From 
the  first,  however,  he  was  a  great  talker  when  he  had  a 
chance,  delighting  in  giving  out  as  well  as  in  absorbing 
information.  Much  of  his  early  knowledge,  he  used  to 
say,  was  derived  from  the  Penny  Journal,  books  being  a 
scarcity  in  the  house.  The  head-master  of  his  school 


i  EARLY  LIFE  9 

was  attracted  by  the  studious  lad,  and  appointed  him 
librarian  of  a  collection  of  books  above  the  school 
porch.  At  a  very  early  age  Green's  reflective  powers 
were  developed  as  well  as  his  assimilative.  He  was 
brought  up  in  a  High  Church  atmosphere,  and  is  said 
to  have  been  especially  influenced  by  a  lady  who  was 
the  widow  of  one  of  Newman's  disciples.  When  just 
thirteen,  he  read  in  a  shop  window  Lord  John  Russell's 
once  famous  Durham  letter  (November  1850)  upon  the 
"Papal  Aggression."  He  saw  the  absurdity  of  the 
agitation,  and  condemned  the  abortive  persecution  of 
the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act  so  vigorously  as  to  incur 
the  wrath  of  his  uncle.  The  uncle  forbade  the  house 
to  him,  and  was  only  reconciled  on  condition  of  future 
silence  upon  the  irritating  topic.  Green  shared,  too, 
in  the  interest  excited  by  Layard's  account  of  the 
Nestorians  in  the  Euphrates  Valley.  Some  one  had 
talked  to  the  schoolboys  upon  the  subject,  and  Green 
went  off  to  Dr.  Millard  for  further  information.  The 
orthodox  mind  of  Oxford  was  much  exercised  by  the 
problem  whether  it  could  be  right  to  show  kindness  to 
Monophysites.  Dr.  Millard,  therefore,  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  lecturing  his  pupil  upon  the  dangers  of 
heresy.  Green's  curiosity  was  aroused,  and  he  became 
interested  in  the  history  of  early  sects.  Some  years 
later,  having  to  attend  a  college  examination  upon  Bible 
history,  of  which  he  knew  little,  he  seized  an  oppor- 
tunity of  displaying  a  wide,  though  irrelevant  know- 
ledge of  heresies.  He  was  "  deeply  humiliated "  by 
the  examiner's  comment,  "  I  should  advise  you  to  add 
to  your  theological  learning  a  knowledge  of  some  of 
the  commonest  facts  of  Biblical  history."  Green's 
studies,  however,  had  been  of  permanent  service  to 
him,  as  he  notes,  by  stimulating  his  sense  of  the 
importance  of  the  religious  element  in  history.  Mean- 


io  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

while,  his  Anglican  surroundings  had  awakened  his 
assthetic  sensibilities.  He  was  led  to  the  study  of 
church  architecture.  He  would  hoard  up  his  pence 
till  he  could  accumulate  sixpence  to  pay  a  sexton  for 
admission  to  a  church.  "  It  must,"  he  says,  "  have 
been  an  odd  sight  to  see  the  very  little  boy  spending 
all  his  Saints'  Days  not  in  play,  but  in  hunting  up 
churches  where  he  might  shut  himself  up  to  rub 
brasses  or  to  take  notes  of  architecture.  I  knew  a 
great  deal  about  architecture  at  thirteen.  My  first 
knowledge  of  Freeman  was  when  he  used  to  carry 
'  little  Johnny,'  then  thirteen  years  old,  on  his  shoulder 
round  Millard's  library,  because  I  was  so  well  up  in 
mouldings." 

The  evils  of  poverty,  Green  said,  were  first  impressed 
upon  him  by  a  visit  of  the  whole  family  to  London  to 
seethe  Exhibition  of  1851.  The  Greens  had  to  put 
up  at  a  little  public  -  house,  and  to  walk  because 
omnibuses  were  too  dear.  The  landlady,  however, 
was  attracted  by  his  talk  and  treated  him  kindly ;  and 
besides  the  Kohinoor  (which  he  thought  a  "  humbug  ") 
and  the  machinery,  which  delighted  him,  he  was  im- 
pressed by  the  iron  shutters  on  Apsley  House,  a 
monument  to  the  wickedness  of  the  mob,  as  his  father 
pointed  out ;  and  he  even  saw  the  back  of  the  great 
Duke  himself. 

The  floggings  mentioned  in  the  letter  were  some- 
times severe  enough.  Green  discovered  that  the  cane 
would  be  inflicted  for  three  bad  marks  in  a  week.  He 
determined  to  economise  punishment  by  getting  two 
every  week.  Dr.  Millard,  discovering  this  device, 
made  an  excuse  for  a  third  bad  mark,  and,  says  Green, 
"  What  a  flogging  he  gave  me,  to  be  sure !  I 
deserved  it,"  he  adds  magnanimously.  His  greatest 
triumph  at  school,  he  declares,  was  beguiling  a  very 


i  EARLY  LIFE  n 

silent  master  into  "  incessant  conversation."  The 
master  was  a  lover  of  Spenser,  and  Green  drew  him 
out  upon  this  favourite  topic.  A  desire  to  gain 
information  by  asking  questions  was  a  characteristic 
quality,  and  was  encouraged  by  his  father's  constant 
kindness  in  talking  over  his  school  work  and  discussing 
every  interesting  topic  without  affectation  of  know- 
ledge. Arithmetic  seems  to  have  been  his  great 
trouble  at  school,  and  he  was  "  always  getting  thrashed 
about  it." 

A  curious  incident  shows  another  side  of  Green's 
mental  history,  and  was  connected  with  an  important 
change  in  his  life.  He  was  brought  up  in  a  Tory 
circle,  and  was  decorated  with  a  dark-blue  rosette  on 
election  days  ;  but  he  inclined  to  political  liberalism 
from  early  years.  He  could  not  himself  attribute  this 
to  any  external  influence  except  that  of  his  father,  who 
was  of  the  "  Peelite  "  persuasion.  Now  liberalism,  as 
he  remarks,  goes  better  with  Ritualism  than  with  the 
old-fashioned  Anglicanism.  The  Anglican  was  for  a 
church  establishment,  and  took  Charles  I.  and  Laud 
for  representatives  of  the  cause.  A  prize  having  been 
offered  for  a  school  essay  upon  Charles  L,  Green  read 
Hume  and  such  books  as  he  could  lay  hands  upon 
and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  royal  martyr  was 
on  the  wrong  side.  The  examiner,  Canon  Mozley, 
awarded  the  prize  to  Green  over  the  heads  of  older 
boys,  but  took  occasion  to  express  his  disapproval  of 
the  opinions  expressed  in  the  essay.  Green,  he  hoped, 
would  change  his  views  as  he  became  older.  The  head- 
master was  more  indignant  at  such  a  revolt  from 
orthodoxy,  so  indignant  indeed,  as  Green  declares, 
that  from  this  time  he  resolved  to  get  rid  of  his  pupil. 
He  had  already  been  shocked  by  symptoms  of  levity. 
He  had  shown  Green  a  picture  of  Noah  in  the  Ark, 


12  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  the  boy  had  audaciously  remarked  that  the  patriarch 
looked  like  a  "  Jack-in-the-Box."  Green  had  now  risen 
to  be  head  of  the  school,  and  Dr.  Millard  declared  that 
he  must  be  sent  to  a  private  tutor.  The  ways  of 
school-masters  are  sometimes  mysterious,  but  one  may 
be  permitted  to  hope  that  Dr.  Millard  had  other 
reasons  besides  a  horror  of  premature  heresy.  It  was 
obviously  important  that  the  boy  should  obtain  a 
scholarship,  and  he  might  be  better  prepared  at  a 
private  tutor's  than  in  the  company  of  less-advanced 
schoolfellows. 

The  decision  must  have  been  made  just  before 
his  father's  death.  Green  was  sent  to  Mr.  Ridgway 
at  Kirkham  in  Lancashire.  He  was  there  left  pretty 
much  to  himself,  and  the  neglect  was  fortunate.  He 
did  "  all  his  growing  "  at  this  time,  and  shot  up  from  a 
diminutive  size  to  his  full  height,  which  was  still  much 
below  the  average.  He  "wandered  about  the  fields 
thinking,"  and  his  thoughts  took  a  remarkable  turn. 
He  held,  as  indeed  he  held  through  life,  to  his  political 
liberalism,  but  the  alternative  to  Laudian  Anglicanism 
seemed  to  be,  not  Puritanism  or  Rationalism,  but 
Catholicism.  In  his  last  journey  to  Lancashire  (appar- 
ently in  1853)  he  fell  in  with  a  Catholic  priest,  and 
announced  his  intention  of  joining  the  Church  of  Rome 
as  soon  as  his  brother  Anglicans  should  be  ready  to 
accompany  him.  The  priest  pointed  out  the  danger 
of  delaying  till  that  indefinite  period,  and  Green  was 
so  much  impressed  that  he  informed  his  uncle  of  his 
intention  of  being  reconciled  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
Exactly  a  century  earlier  (1753)  Gibbon  (b.  1737)  had 
taken  the  same  step  at  the  same  age.  Green's  uncle 
treated  the  case  more  coolly  than  Gibbon's  father.  It 
would  be  unpleasant  for  him,  he  suggested,  to  be  con- 
sidered responsible  for  his  ward's  conversion.  Green 


i  EARLY  LIFE  13 

might  put  off  the  decisive  step  till  he  was  of  age.  The 
boy  finally  consented  to  risk  his  soul  a  little  longer, 
and  before  the  period  arrived,  his  mind  had  taken  a 
different  turn. 

Green  appears  to  have  kept  up  friendly  relations 
with  Mr.  Ridgway,  but  in  the  autumn  of  1853  he  was 
transferred  to  the  care  of  Charles  Duke  Yonge  (1812- 
1891),  afterwards  professor  at  Belfast,  and  then  residing 
at  Leamington.  Yonge  was  the  author  of  many  educa- 
tional manuals,  and  at  a  later  time  of  several  historical 
works.  He  set  Green  vigorously  to  work,  gave  him 
a  taste  for  classical  literature,  and,  finding  him  ignorant 
of  history,  put  Gibbon  into  his  hands.  Green  read  the 
book  from  beginning  to  end.  "  What  a  new  world 
that  was  ! "  he  exclaims.  The  first  initiation  into  his- 
torical studies  roused  an  enthusiasm  which  was  presently 
to  undergo  a  temporary  eclipse.  Meanwhile  he  was 
happy  at  Leamington,  where  he  had  opportunities  for 
talking,  for  hearing  music,  and  even  for  juvenile  love- 
making.  In  1854  his  tutor  sent  him  up  to  compete 
for  an  open  scholarship  at  Jesus  College,  Oxford.  The 
intention  was  merely  to  give  him  practice  in  the  art 
of  examination.  Green  unexpectedly  won  the  scholar- 
ship. He  was  too  young  to  go  into  residence  for  a 
year,  but  at  his  uncle's  desire  he  decided  to  accept 
his  election,  and  apparently  remained  at  Oxford  in 
the  interval.  He  was  matriculated  December  7, 
1855. 

Green's  intellectual  brightness  was  already  conspic- 
uous, and  it  might  have  been  expected  that  with  his 
equally  remarkable  gifts  for  social  intercourse  he  would 
have  become  familiar  with  his  most  promising  contem- 
poraries. There  was  certainly  no  lack  of  brilliant  young 
men  in  the  Oxford  of  those  days,  and  intercourse  with 
clever  lads  of  the  same  age  is  often  the  best  part  of 


1 4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

university  education.  Green,  however,  remained  in  a 
position  of  comparative  isolation.  He  formed  a  valu- 
able friendship  with  Mr.,  now  Professor  Boyd  Dawkins, 
who  entered  Jesus  College  in  1857,  but  he  had  not  a 
large  circle  of  friends.  The  college  at  the  time  was 
almost  entirely  filled  by  Welshmen,  who  saw  little  of 
out-college  men  ;  and  its  members  were  not  distin- 
guished in  the  schools.  Green  certainly  retained  a  very 
painful  impression  of  his  undergraduate  career,  and, 
though  in  later  years  he  could  recognise  some  of  the 
charm  of  the  Oxford  atmosphere,  did  not  change  his 
opinion  of  the  college  circle  of  his  own  day.  Professor 
Dawkins  indeed  says  that  Green  had  some  acquaintances 
outside  of  his  own  college,  but  adds  that  his  merits 
were  nowhere  fully  appreciated.  His  conversation  was 
already  brilliant,  and  he  had  a  far  wider  and  more  varied 
knowledge  than  most  undergraduates.  His  interests, 
however,  lay  outside  the  regular  field  of  university 
study,  and  he  took  a  dislike  to  the  dry  and  narrow 
system  then  dominant  at  Oxford.  History,  in  which  he 
might  have  distinguished  himself,  was  associated  with 
law,  which  he  regarded  with  aversion.  A  deeper  reason 
for  disgust  with  the  system  impressed  itself  upon  him. 
When  selected  fragments  of  different  books  were  pre- 
scribed by  his  tutors,  he  refused  to  submit ;  feeling 
that  the  study  of  history  was  degraded  when  the 
student  was  forced  to  confine  himself  to  the  fragments 
of  knowledge  which  would  "  pay "  in  the  schools, 
instead  of  pursuing  wider  inquiries  for  their  own  sake. 
When  he  was  about  to  take  his  degree,  however,  the 
college  tutor  put  his  name  down  for  modern  history. 
He  at  once  withdrew  it,  and  substituted  physical  science. 
He  got  up  the  necessary  scientific  knowledge  in  the  short 
interval  before  the  examination.  He  could  pass  with- 
out trouble  in  classical  subjects  ;  and  only  just  succeeded 


i  EARLY  LIFE  15 

in  October   1859   in  escaping  of  malice  prepense  the 
compliment  of  an  "  honorary  fourth."  l 

Green's  position  in  the  college  was  affected  by  another 
significant  circumstance.  He  joined  a  small  club  which 
discussed  literary  topics.  A  satire  called  the  "  Gentiad," 
printed  in  1857,  was  produced  by  this  body.  It  echoes 
the  "  Dunciad,"  and  begins  by  an  invocation  of  Pope's 
muse. 

Mute  is  the  lyre  that  moved  of  old  the  rage 
And  scourged  the  rampant  follies  of  the  age  ; 
Hushed  is  the  voice  whose  one  satiric  word 
Pierced  ten  times  deeper  than  the  keenest  sword  ; 
And,  see  !  e'er  yet  its  echoes  faint  are  hushed 
Start  into  life  the  vices  it  had  crushed. 
Oh  wake  once  more,  satiric  harp  ;  too  long 
Have  ninnies  gloried  in  thy  silenced  song  ! 

The  bard  proceeds  to  apply  his  lash  to  members  of 
Jesus  College.  The  efficiency  of  the  satire  could  not 
be  estimated  without  an  explanation  of  allusions  now 
much  in  need  of  a  learned  commentator.  The  sharpest 
personal  attacks  were  inserted  by  other  members  of 
the  club  ;  but  Green  was  taken  to  be  the  author  of 
the  whole,  and  was  too  proud  to  disavow  the  responsi- 
bility. Ingenuous  youth  shrinks  from  familiarity  with 
a  man  possessed  of  so  dangerous  a  talent,  and  Green 
was  more  or  less  excluded  from  the  college  society. 
The  tutors,  meanwhile,  thought  him  an  able  but  idle 
man  who,  from  some  inscrutable  reason,  was  too  way- 
ward to  accept  the  prescribed  course  of  study.  Though 
indifferent  to  academical  distinctions,  Green's  intellect 
was  anything  but  idle.  He  was  reading  as  his  fancy 
led,  and  at  this  time  was  especially  interested  in  the 
English  literature  from  the  time  of  his  model  Pope. 

1  Green's  rooms  were  upon  the  "  first  staircase  on  the  right,  entering  the  second 
quadrangle — next  the  Principal's  house  in  the  corner,  and  on  the  second  floor  on 
the  left  (right  as  one  ascends  the  stairs)." 


1 6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Among  his  favourites  were  Addison,  Steele,  Gibbon,  and 
Macaulay.  For  Lamb  and  Thackeray  he  professed  a 
sentiment  of  personal  affection  ;  and,  as  may  be  inferred 
from  the  lines  just  quoted,  he  was  able  to  adopt  the 
style  which  he  admired.  Meanwhile  the  early  enthusi- 
asm for  historical  reading  was  more  or  less  in  abey- 
ance, though  incidentally  it  would  seem  his  literary 
studies  led  him  to  pick  up  a  good  deal  of  historical 
anecdote. 

One  incident  of  this  time  had  an  important  influence 
in  rousing  Green  to  a  more  hopeful  state  of  mind. 
During  his  university  career  Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley  was 
professor  of  ecclesiastical  history.  Green,  during  his 
last  term,  went  accidentally  into  the  lecture -room 
where  Stanley  was  discoursing  upon  the  Wesleys.  The 
lecture  fascinated  him,  and  he  never  missed  another.  In 
one  lecture,  Stanley  concluded  with  the  phrase,  "Magna 
est  verifas  et  prtevalebit,  words  so  great  that  I  could 
almost  prefer  them  to  the  motto  of  our  own  university, 
Dominus  Illuminatio  mea"  As  Stanley  left  the  room 
Green,  who  had  been  deeply  interested,  exclaimed, 
"  Magna  est  veritas  et  prxvalebit  is  the  motto  of  the 
town  !  "  Stanley  was  much  pleased,  invited  his  young 
admirer  to  walk  home  with  him,  and  asked  him  to 
dinner.  The  day  appointed  was  early  in  November 
(1859),  anc^  tne  "town  and  gown"  riots  of  the  period 
made  the  passage  through  the  streets  rather  hazardous. 
"  How  could  you  come  at  all  ?"  asked  Stanley.  "Sir," 
replied  Green  in  the  words  of  Johnson,  "it  is  a  great 
thing  to  dine  with  the  Canons  of  Christ  Church."  A 
canonry  of  Christ  Church  was  annexed  to  Stanley's 
professorship.  A  warm  friendship  sprang  up,  and  the 
effect  produced  upon  Green  may  be  best  given  from  a 
letter  written  a  little  later.  In  December  1863  Stanley 
was  about  to  marry  Lady  Augusta  Bruce,  and  to  become 


i  EARLY  LIFE  17 

Dean  of  Westminster.     Green,  then  a  London  clergy- 
man, wrote  to  congratulate  him. 

To  A.  P.  Stanley 

2  VICTORIA  GARDENS,  LADBROKE  ROAD, 
NOTTING  HILL,  W., 

December  1863. 

MY  DEAR  Dr.  STANLEY — I  have  only  now  learnt 
from  Oakley  your  direction,  or  I  should  have  ventured 
before  to  offer  my  congratulations  on  your  marriage. 
No  one  can  wish  you  more  happiness  than  I,  to  whom 
you  have  been  the  cause  of  so  much. 

I  have  often  longed,  in  the  midst  of  my  work,  his- 
torical or  clerical,  to  tell  you  how  wholly  that  work 
and  the  happiness  that  comes  of  it,  is  owing  to  you.  I 
am  glad  I  delayed  till  now,  till  the  close  of  your  Oxford 
teaching,  that  you  may  at  least  know  what  your  teach- 
ing has  done  for  one  Oxford  man  out  of  the  many  that 
you  taught. 

I  came  up  to  Oxford  a  hard  reader  and  a  passionate 
High  Churchman — two  years  of  residence  left  me  idle 
and  irreligious.  Partly  from  ill-health,  partly  from 
disgust  at  my  college,  I  had  cut  myself  off  from  society 
within  or  without  it.  I  rebelled  doggedly  against  the 
systems  around  me.  I  would  not  work,  because  work 
was  the  Oxford  virtue.  I  tore  myself  from  history 
which  I  loved,  and  plunged  into  the  trifles  of  archaeology, 
because  they  had  no  place  in  the  university  course. 

I  remember,  that  in  the  absolute  need  I  felt  of  some 
reading,  and  my  resolve  to  read  nothing  that  could 
possibly  bring  me  in  contact  with  what  Oxford  valued, 
I  spent  a  year  over  the  literature  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  especially  the  vexed  questions  in  the  life 
of  Pope ! 

Of  course,  all  this  seems  now  absurd  as  a  sick 
man's  dream  ;  but  absurd  as  it  was,  it  was  the  life  I  had 
deliberately  chosen,  and  was  doggedly  carrying  out,  when 
accident  brought  me  to  your  lecture-room. 


1 8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

It  was  the  same  with  religion.  High  Churchism  fell 
with  a  great  crash  and  left  nothing  behind — nothing 
but  a  vague  reverence  for  goodness,  however  narrow 
and  bigoted  in  form,  which  kept  me  as  far  from  the 
shallow  of  the  current  Oxford  liberalism  as  I  had 
already  drifted  from  the  Mansel-orthodoxy. 

I  saw  only  religious  parties  unjust  to  one  another  as 
I  stood  apart,  unjust  to  them  all. 

I  had  withdrawn  myself  from  Oxford  work,  and  I 
found  no  help  in  Oxford  theology. 

I  was  utterly  miserable  when  I  wandered  into  your 
lecture-room,  and  my  recollection  of  what  followed 
is  not  so  much  of  any  definite  words  as  of  a  great 
unburthening.  Then  and  after  I  heard  you  speak  of 
work,  not  as  a  thing  of  classes  and  fellowships,  but  as 
something  worthy  for  its  own  sake,  worthy  because  it 
made  us  like  the  great  worker. 

That  sermon  on  work  was  like  a  revelation  to  me. 
"  If  you  cannot  or  will  not  work  at  the  work  which 
Oxford  gives  you,  at  any  rate  work  at  something."  I 
took  up  my  old  boy -dreams, — history — I  think  I 
have  been  a  steady  worker  ever  since.  And  so  in 
religion,  it  was  not  so  much  a  creed  that  you  taught 
me,  as  fairness. 

You  were  liberal,  you  pointed  forward,  you  believed 
in  a  future  as  other  "  liberals "  did,  but  you  were  not 
like  them,  unjust  to  the  present  or  the  past.  I  found 
that  old  vague  reverence  of  mine  for  personal  goodness 
which  alone  remained  to  me,  widened  in  your  teaching 
into  a  live  catholicity.  I  used  to  think  as  I  left  your 
lecture-room  of  how  many  different  faiths  and  persons 
you  had  spoken,  and  how  you  had  revealed  and  taught 
me  to  love  the  good  that  was  in  them  all. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  that  great  principle  of  fairness 
has  helped  me  since, — how  in  my  reading  it  has  helped 
me  out  of  partisanship  and  mere  hero-worship, — how 
in  my  parish  it  used  to  disclose  to  me  the  real 
sterling  worth  of  obstructive  churchwardens  or  meddling 
committee-men. 


i  EARLY  LIFE  19 

But  it  has  helped  me  most  of  all  in  my  realisation  of 
the  church,  that  church  of  all  men  and  all  things, 
"  working  together  for  good,"  drawn  on  through  error 
and  ignorance  by  and  to  Him  who  is  wisdom  and 
truth. 

I  have  said  much  more  than  I  purposed,  and  yet 
much  less  than  I  might  say. 

Of  course  there  were  other  influences — Carlyle  helped 
me  to  work — above  all,  Montaigne  helped  me  to  fair- 
ness. But  the  personal  impression  of  a  living  man  must 
always  be  greater  and  more  vivid  than  those  of  books. 

I  only  pray  that  in  your  new  sphere  you  may  be  to 
others  what  in  your  old  you  were  to  me. — Believe  me, 
dear  Dr.  Stanley,  faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

In  his  last  year  of  residence  (1859)  Green's  historical 
powers  were  shown  by  a  very  remarkable  performance. 
The  proprietors  of  the  Oxford  Chronicle  had  published 
a  series  of  articles  upon  "  Oxford  in  the  Last  Century." 
They  complain1  that  they  could  not  obtain  access  to 
the  city  archives.  The  consequence  was  that  the  series 
threatened  to  "  degenerate  into  a  mere  dull  summary 
of  petty  and  uninteresting  events."  It  does  not  seem 
to  be  obvious  that  the  dulness — which  is  undeniable — 
would  have  been  remedied  by  use  of  city  archives. 
Anyhow  they  changed  the  scheme,  and  resolved  to 
"  depict  in  as  lively  a  manner  as  possible  the  life  of 
times  which  were  so  fast  passing  away  from  us."  The 
execution  of  this  task  was  fortunately  entrusted  to 
Green.  The  plan  may  probably  have  been  suggested 
by  him.  A  country  newspaper  was  singularly  fortunate 
in  gaining  so  efficient  a  contributor.  If  his  intellect 
had  not  reached  full  maturity,  he  gives  unmistakable 
proofs  of  the  power  afterwards  revealed.  His  descrip- 

1  I  quote  from  a  preface  to  the  two  series  which  were  issued  together  in  1859. 
They  are  anonymous,  but  Green's  authorship  of  the  second  is  unmistakable.  The 
papers  are  about  to  be  republished. 


20  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

tions  of  the  old  Oxford  with  its  Jacobite  dons,  its 
solid  and  corrupt  aldermen,  its  wild  undergraduates, 
and  its  circumambient  highwaymen,  show  his  charac- 
teristic gifts.  Probably  the  scheme  of  a  lively  picture 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the  famous  chapter  in 
Macaulay's  second  volume,  which  every  one  was  then 
reading.  Green  in  any  case  shows  the  first  indication 
of  his  keen  appreciation  of  the  importance  of  the  history 
of  towns.  Incidentally  he  also  displays  wide  reading 
not  only  of  Oxford  antiquaries  and  of  such  local  litera- 
ture as  Amhurst's  Terr<e  Fitius,  but  of  the  great  English 
authors  of  the  period.  It  is  strange,  though  it  is  doubt- 
less true,  that  some  boys  brought  up  at  Oxford  do  not 
acquire  a  taste  for  history.  Oxford  had  at  last  a  native 
citizen  thoroughly  susceptible  to  the  influences  of  his 
environment.  Whatever  his  views  may  have  been  as 
to  the  Mercians,  he  was  profoundly  fascinated  by  the 
traditions  of  the  ancient  city.  Green  was  planning 
further  papers,  but  was  discouraged  at  the  time  by 
finding  that  the  editor  of  the  paper  wanted  no  more 
work  of  the  kind.  In  September  he  had  made  a  fly- 
ing visit  to  Ireland.  He  saw  something  of  the  religious 
"  revival "  at  Belfast,  which  was  then  interesting  the 
religious  world,  and  wrote  a  careful  account  of  his 
impressions,  which  was  returned  with  thanks  by  a 
magazine.  He  threw  it  aside  with  bitter  disappoint- 
ment. Years  afterwards  he  looked  at  it  again  and 
found  that  it  had  never  been  opened. 

Green  was  now  choosing  a  profession.  His  uncle, 
says  Professor  Dawkins,  would  have  been  willing  to 
send  him  to  the  Bar.  For  that  profession  he  had  no 
doubt  some  decided  qualifications,  though  the  weak- 
ness of  his  health  would  have  been  against  it.  He 
was,  it  seems,  prejudiced  rather  against  than  in  favour 
of  the  proposal,  by  its  coming  with  authority.  He 


i  EARLY  LIFE  21 

had    begun    the    study    but    found   it    repulsive,    and 
literature   seemed   to    be    hopeless    as    a    support.      A 
diary  kept  at   this  time   illustrates  his  state   of  mind. 
Besides    little    incidents    of   the    day,    remarks    upon 
his    acquaintances    and    references    to   his    reading    (he 
speaks    of  Rabelais,   Montaigne,   Burton,    Dante,   and 
Sartor  Resartus],  he  considers  his  position  and  pros- 
pects.    In  spite  of  his  pass  degree  he  declares — "  though 
he  is  probably  the  only  one  to  think  so  " — that  his  career 
has  been   a  successful  one.     "  These  four  years  have 
been  the  Medea's  kettle  from  whence  I  came  out  re- 
newed.    Oh !  how  I  laugh  at  myself  as  I  came  up, — 
that  little  restless  animal  in  black,  covetous  of  applause, 
of  society,  of  ambition,  and  only  hesitating  whether  my 
choice  should  make  me  a  Pitt  or  a  Fox  ;  prating  of 
Love  with  the  self-conscious  air  of  an  expert ;  sharp, 
sarcastic,  bustling,  pressing  to  the  front, — and  now  !  " 
Now,  he  has  learnt  to  know  himself, — the  limits  of  his 
powers  and  the  secret  of  his  own  character.     He  thinks 
that  he  can  "  bear  good  fortune  without  pride,  and  ill- 
luck    without   bitterness."      The    practical    application 
appears  to  be  that  he  will  choose  a  life  that  will  let  him 
"  hide  in  his  study,"  and  yet  "  gain  a  quiet  name."     As 
a  clergyman  he  may  gain  an  income  sufficient  for  inde- 
pendence, and  be  able  to  write  what  he  pleases  without 
being  "  driven  to  toadyism  or  hackwork."      He  had 
already  made  a  plan  for  a  history  of  the  Church  of 
England,  into  which,  as  he  notes  in  his  diary,  a  previous 
plan  for  writing  the  lives  of  the  Archbishops  had  de- 
veloped.    At  this  time,  too,  he  was  being  attracted  by 
the  teaching  of  F.  D.  Maurice,  and  at  last,  in  what  he 
calls  "  a  fit  of  religious  enthusiasm,"  he  decided  to  take 
orders.     The  "  fit,"  it  must  be  added,  seems  to  have 
been  very  genuine  and  lasting.     Meanwhile  he  had  some 
time  to  pass  before  reaching  the  canonical  age  for  ordina- 


22  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

tion.  Part  of  the  time  in  the  winter  of  1859-60  was 
spent  at  Theale,  a  village  in  Somersetshire.  His  friend 
Dawkins  took  lodgings  there  in  the  parsonage,  where 
Green  with  two  or  three  of  his  companions  joined  him. 
They  appear  to  have  had  a  very  good  time.  Green 
acted  partly  as  "  coach  "  to  Dawkins,  who  was  preparing 
for  his  degree.  Dawkins  repaid  this  service  by  rousing 
Green's  interest  in  geology.  Dawkins  had  already 
begun  to  explore  Wookey  Hole,  not  far  from  Theale, 
and  to  unearth  relics  of  prehistoric  man  whose  exist- 
ence had  recently  been  made  known  by  similar  dis- 
coveries on  the  Continent.  Green  joined  in  these 
explorations.  He  was  also  then  persuaded  by  Dawkins 
to  attend  Professor  Phillips's  lectures  on  geology.  He 
read  Lyell,  Murchison,  Hugh  Miller,  and  Buckland  ; 
and  he  was  profoundly  interested  by  the  early  Darwinian 
controversies.  Green's  interest  in  these  matters  was 
connected  with  an  interest  in  physical  geography.  His 
singular  power,  in  spite  of  his  shortsightedness,  of  taking 
in  the  main  features  of  scenery  and  tracing  their  effect 
upon  the  historical  development  of  races  and  nations,  was 
strengthened  by  his  geological  observations.  Meanwhile 
the  little  party  at  Theale  had  other  interests.  Green  took 
part  in  the  work  of  the  parish  especially  in  training  the 
village  choir,  and  saw  something  of  the  natives.  There 
was  even  a  temporary  marriage  engagement,  which 
fortunately  came  to  an  end  on  the  speedy  discovery 
of  a  want  of  any  really  deep  congeniality.  An  incident 
of  Green's  examination  for  orders  at  the  end  of  this 
period  is  characteristic  both  of  him  and  of  Stanley. 
He  flatly  refused  to  read  Paley's  Evidences,  even 
at  the  cost  of  rejection,  because,  he  said,  the  argument 
was  out  of  date.  The  Bishop  of  London  (Tait)  had 
expressly  mentioned  Paley  in  his  letter  to  Stanley,  the 
examining  chaplain.  Stanley  ingeniously  remarked 


i  EARLY  LIFE  23 

that  as  the  Evidences  was  not  expressly^  mentioned, 
Green  might  take  up  the  Hor<e  Paulina.  On  the 
final  examination  this  produced  a  difficulty,  and  an 
appeal  had  to  be  made  to  the  bishop.  Green  was 
summoned  to  an  interview  and  told  the  whole  story. 
"  Oh  Stanley,  Stanley !  "  cried  the  bishop,  and  sent 
Green  back.  He  never  read  the  Evidences  nor  Pearson 
on  The  Creed,  to  which  he  had  also  objected.  Green 
stayed  at  Fulham  Palace  for  a  time,  and  notes  in  his 
diary  that  the  bishop  "  has  been  hospitality  itself — 
unpretentious,  full  of  honest  fun,  but  always  open  and 
sincere.  His  charge  embodied  all  my  feelings  on 
charity  towards  others  in  the  Church  and  without  it. 
They  were  noble  words — not  soon,  by  God's  grace,  to 
be  forgotten." 

I  now  give  some  early  letters  which  may  be  suffi- 
ciently understood  by  reference  to  these  statements. 
One  remark  may  be  premised.  Green  preserved  copies 
of  some  letters  from  which  I  make  extracts.  It  is 
plain  that  they  are  not  simply  intended  for  his  corre- 
spondence, but  were  also  exercises  in  composition.  He 
is  thinking  of  Addison  and  Charles  Lamb,  and  indul- 
ging in  literary  airs  and  graces  with  the  ambition  of  a 
youthful  aspirant  to  authorship.  Allowance  must,  there- 
fore, be  made  for  a  certain  artificiality  which  was  soon 
to  be  replaced  by  the  thoroughly  spontaneous  character 
of  his  later  correspondence. 


To  the  Rev.  J.  Ridgway 

August  1858. 

[Green  describes  himself  as  "  sitting  over  Charles 
Lamb  or  Dryden  in  his  study,"  or  "  wandering  down 
to  Tenby  to  pick  up  gelatinous  sea-anemones,  jolt  over 
the  sand  in  bathing-machines,  or  philosophise  on  the 
manners  and  customs  of  an  English  coffee-room."] 


24  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

For  I  must  confess  that  as  modern  ideas  go  I  am 
but  an  indifferent  traveller.  I  have  a  greater  love  for 
Addison  than  for  Ruskin,  and  take  a  far  greater  interest 
in  a  character  than  in  a  landscape.  Nowadays,  I  believe, 
were  a  tourist  to  stray  down  to  the  Coverley  estate,  he 
would  stroll,  guide-book  in  hand,  through  the  haunted 
grove  and  would  scarce  spare  a  nod  for  Sir  Roger. 
I  fell  into  talk  with  an  intelligent  and  gentlemanly 
Yankee  I  met  by  chance  a  few  days  back,  and  after 
listening  to  his  rapturous  descriptions  of  the  lakes  and 
mountains  of  Wales,  I  asked  him  what  he  thought  of 
its  people.  "  People  !  eh  !  oh  !  very  curious,  very  ; 
their  women  wear  hats."  For  my  part,  nothing  struck 
me  more  in  the  Celtic  race,  especially  in  the  southern 
part  of  Wales,  than  its  Ishmaelitish  character.  Every 
man's  hand  is  against  his  fellow,  and  his  fellow's  against 
him.  They  recall  the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
their  normal  condition  is  that  of  war,  however  inter- 
rupted by  occasional  truces.  They  are  impulsively 
generous  and  quarrelsome  ;  they  take  but  an  hour  to 
become  warm  friends,  and  but  a  moment  to  change  to 
implacable  foes.  Ever  thirsty  for  excitement,  they  rush 
from  the  conventicle  to  the  beer -shop,  and  from  the 
beer-shop  back  to  the  conventicle.  Their  pulpit-orators 
roar  sinners  into  repentance  and  women  into  convul- 
sions. The  only  time  they  do  not  live  in  is  the  present 
— they  cling  with  a  passionate  tenacity  to  the  language 
and  traditions  of  the  past — they  grasp  with  an  equally 
passionate  energy  at  the  railroads  and  mines  that  are  to 
make  up  the  greatness  of  their  future. 


To  T.  O. 

1858. 

I  have  Jong  had  a  standing  quarrel  with  proverbs. 
They  are  the  half-truths  that  Pedantry,  that  utterer  of 
base  coin,  would  pass  on  the  world  for  universal  verities. 
Stuff !  Universal  truth  is  as  unattainable  as  an  universal 
language.  "  Bah  !  "  means  the  most  different  thing  in 


i  EARLY  LIFE  25 

the  world  in  a  man  and  in  a  sheep.  "  Early  to  bed 
and  early  to  rise,"  is  to  J.  B.  the  sagest  of  maxims  ;  to 
me  the  most  shameless  of  lies.  But  of  all  trenchant, 
impudent,  non-verities  commend  me  to  your  "  No  news 
is  good  news."  There  is  something  astounding  in  the 
very  recklessness  of  its  assumption.  It  is  as  if  corre- 
spondence were  a  communion  solely  of  misery  and  woe, 
— as  if  we  had  only  recourse  to  a  friend  as  to  a  money- 
lender when  we  were  going  to  the  dogs, — as  if  we  were 
selfish  of  our  happiness  and  generous  of  our  misfortunes, 
— as  if  the  Post  Office  were  a  house  of  mourning  and 
our  letters  delivered  in  black-edged  envelopes  by  under- 
takers instead  of  postmen.  It  is  as  though  every  man 
ran  prating  to  all  the  world  of  his  mishaps, — as  if  our 
Agamemnons  had  no  mantle  to  hide  their  faces  in,  but 
must  blubber  out  their  woes  on  double-prest  notepaper, 
— as  if  he  knew  nothing  of  that  divine  gift  of  silence, — 
as  if  all  were  parrots  with  an  everlasting  "Poor  Poll." 
I  am  sure  this  proverb  was  minted  by  a  doctor  or  a 
nurse.  There  is  something  of  the  "  it  might  have  been 
worse  "  philosophy  in  it.  It  has  an  indefinable  smack  of 
Mrs.  Gamp.  "Tis  an  ill  end  to  the  friendship  of  Pylades 
and  Orestes — this  slap  in  the  face  from  Orestes. 

And,  pray,  how  am  I  ?  I  am  reading  for  fun,  that 
is,  not  for  the  class  list,  dread  Moloch  of  Oxford 
innocents ;  scribbling  alternately  love-letters,  satires,  and 
romances l ;  flirting  at  fishing-parties,  raking  at  fairs, 
sentimentalising  no  matter  where  ;  seeing  the  salmon 
leap  out  of  the  Wye,  and  the  children  sand-digging  at 
Tenby  ;  going  mad  beneath  the  howling  of  gospel- 
preachers  in  South  Wales,  and  saved  from  insanity  by 
a  glance  at  K.  J. 

To  M.  M. 

1858. 

[He  has  accepted  an  invitation  to  a  fishing-party  in 
order  that  he  may  "  fling  himself  into  the  thick  of  the 
fun."] 

1  In  his  notebooks  at  this  time,  amidst  various  historical  references,  are  sketches 
of  two  stories. 


26  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Now  a  fishing-party  has  always  seemed  the  chiefest 
of  bores  ;  angling  may  have  its  charms,  its  quietude  of 
contemplation  and  repose  of  mind  ;  romping  may  have 
its  allurements,  its  riotous  movement  and  joyous  girl- 
giggles,  but  the  combination  of  the  two  is  like  the 
mixture  of  oil  and  water,  shake  them  as  you  will,  'tis 
impossible  to  unite  them. 

Once  disembarked  from  our  dogcart,  I  stole  quietly 
to  the  slow  oily  stream,  beneath  whose  willows  lurked 
scores  of  fat,  podgy  perch,  and  long  hungry  pike.  But 
my  anticipations  were  soon  fulfilled.  A  gentle  "  bob," 
a  slight  quiver  of  the  float  ;  he's  certainly  nibbling 
methought.  When  "  Please,"  cries  a  laughing  voice  at 
my  elbow,  "can  you  put  on  a  bait  for  me?  "  To  do 
this,  one  must  turn  and  look  in  the  suppliant's  face, 
which  assumes  so  rueful  and  penitent  an  expression, 
that  anger  is  impossible.  You  bait  the  hook  and  adjust 
the  line  which  is  long  enough  to  form  an  electric  cable 
along  the  muddy  river  bottom,  when,  oh  gratitude !  oh 
sober  contemplation  of  angling  !  your  straw  is  suddenly 
snatched  from  your  head,  and  the  fair  penitent  is 
scudding  across  the  meadows  with  her  spoil  a  opima. 
Fishing  is  over  for  the  day,  there  are  the  servants  draw- 
ing up  the  set  lines  and  filling  their  baskets  with  their 
finny  captives ;  but  your  float  may  bob  away  till 
doomsday  unperceived,  while  its  owner  is  chasing  coy 
fugitives  along  the  grassy  meadow,  perchance  to  win  hat 
and  kiss  at  once,  perchance  to  see  the  exulting  robber 
look  saucy  defiance  from  that  impregnable  stronghold 
of  propriety,  where  the  mothers  and  aunts  sit  chatting 
under  the  big  elmshade.  Really,  I  found  myself 
enjoying  this  "  chiefest  of  bores."  I  began  to  think 
that  the  "  accursed  regimen  of  women,"  as  John  Knox 
loved  to  style  it,  might  not  be  so  very  accursed  after 
all.  "  You'll  dance  to-night  of  course,"  laughs  a 
hoyden  of  eighteen,  as  I  sat  lazily  apart.  "  I  never 
dance  ;  "  and  off  she  whirls  in  a  pet.  "  You  dance  to- 
night of  course,"  titters  a  damsel  of  twenty  summers. 
"  I'm  afraid  I'm  quite  ignorant  of  the  art."  The  man 


i  EARLY  LIFE  27 

that  hesitates  is  lost.  A  dozen  instructors  are  instantly 
at  hand,  and  in  another  minute  I  am  in  the  thick  of 
quadrilles  and  waltzes.  "  Two,"  saw  the  dance 
reluctantly  cease,  and  all  drove  home  through  the  elms 
of  Kiddlington,  dark,  looming  through  the  thick  night. 
I  owned  to  myself  that  I  had  not  spent  so  happy  or  so 
unphilosophical  an  evening  for  years.  I  had  not  the 
conscience  to  return  home  at  such  an  hour,  so  spent 
my  night  at  a  friend's  house  just  out  of  Oxford.  I 
awoke  determined  to  have  as  thoughtless  and  happy 
a  day  as  I  had  just  enjoyed.  Not  to  weary  you,  I 
accomplished  my  purpose  by  trotting  about  with  my 
friend  after  birds  all  the  morning,  and  petting  his  little 
children  till  night.  I  was  by  turns  their  horse,  hen- 
house builder,  and  their  drawing-master,  though  in  the 
latter  capacity  my  lessons  went  no  further  than  the 
human  face  divine,  which  is  conveyed  by  a  circle 
surrounding  two  dots  for  the  eyes,  a  smudge  for  the 
nose,  and  a  line  for  the  mouth. 

From  the  end  of  the  letter  it  appears  that  the 
appearance  of  Miss  J.,  probably  the  K.  J.,  a  glance  at 
whom  saved  him  from  madness,  reminds  him  of  a 
picture  of  Gretchen  in  Faust.  It  is  not  her  beauty, 
though  she  is  beautiful,  but  "  the  inexpressible  purity 
and  delicacy  of  her  expression.  There  was  a  dove-like, 
guileless  repose  about  her,  whose  religious  tone  singu- 
larly harmonised  with  the  time  and  place  in  which  I  first 
saw  her.  It  was  with  that  charmed  yet  passionless  fancy 
with  which  one  would  gaze  at  a  saint*  or  a  Madonna, 
that  I  gazed  on  Miss  J." 

To  B. 

1859. 

I  was  excessively  glad  to  hear  from  D.  on  his  return 
that  he  had  found  you  in  possession  of  my  old  rooms. 
I  am  not  one  of  those  who  have  strong  local  attach- 


28  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

ments  :  who  "  strike  root  downwards  "  (which  perhaps 
accounts  for  my  not  "bearing  fruit  upwards");  but 
still  as  one  parts  from  a  place  one  becomes  conscious 
that  one  leaves  a  part  of  the  ego  behind  one,  and  does 
not  wish  even  this  shadowy  remnant  of  oneself  to  be 
insulted  by  the  invasion  of  a  cad.  There  are  some 
sunny  memories,  too,  connected  with  those  old  rooms  of 
mine,  which  such  an  inroad  would  trample  on  ;  hours  of 
poring  over  musty  old  chronicles  while  the  clocks 
chimed  the  hours  after  midnight ;  of  lounges  all  the 
long  summer  afternoons  on  the  old  sofa  over  Ariosto  or 
Rape  of  the  Lock ;  of  pacings  round  and  round  the  room, 
Pope's  Homer  in  hand,  chanting  out  the  lines  which, 
criticise  them  as  you  will,  have  got  a  ring  of  old  Homer 
in  them.  Eheu  !  I  would  rather  burn  my  old  suit  than 
have  it  worn  by  a  Welshman  •pur  et  simple. 

"  I  hate  all  the  world,"  said  Swift,  "  but  I  love  Jack, 
Tom,  and  Harry."  My  feelings  towards  Welshmen 
are  something  like  Swift's  towards  mankind  ;  but  I,  too, 
have  my  Jack,  Tom,  and  Harry  exceptions  from  the 
general  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  doom.  And  I  know  no 
Elisha  on  whom  I  would  rather  have  my  mantle  fall 
than  on  yourself.  En  passant,  I  am  glad,  my  dear 
Elisha,  that  you  have  as  little  as  possible  to  do  with  the 
Baal  worshippers  ;  that  you  hold  yourself  "  like  a  star 
apart "  from  the  Vulgus  of  the  two  Quads.  I  wish  I  had 
been  as  wise  or  as  fortunate  (for  who  can  tell  how  much 
luck  there  is  in  wisdom  or  what  difference  exists 
between  wisdom  and  luck  ?)  I  fought  the  ol  iro\\ol 
and  got  befooled  in  the  encounter  as  I  deserved. 
Always  "  hit  a  man  your  own  size,"  B.  You  honour  a 
man,  I  think,  by  condescending  to  an  encounter,  even 
though  you  trounce  him,  not  that  it  is  so  certain  that  the 
best  man  should  come  off  victor  in  these  engagements. 
The  Vulgus,  whether  Welshman  or  Polynesian,  always 
reminds  me  of  Coleridge's  description  of  Frenchmen. 
"  They  are  like  gunpowder,  each  grain  by  itself  is 
contemptible,  but  mass  them  and  they  are  terrible 
indeed." 


i  EARLY  LIFE  29 

Pardon  my  egotism.  Were  I  ever  so  great  a 
traveller,  I  should  find  the  ego  a  world  large  enough  to 
be  all  my  life  travelling  and  exploring. 


To  W.  E.  Hawkins 

13  HIGH  STREET,  OXFORD, 
Friday,  July  25,  1859. 

[This  letter  refers  to  the  papers  contributed  to  the 
Oxford  Chronicle.] 

I  am  so  fagged  with  work,  my  dear  Dawkins,  that  I 
am  going  to  fling  myself  upon  this  paper  (and  upon 
your  mercies)  just  as  one  flings  oneself  down  on  a 
grassy  lawn  and  counts  the  clouds  sailing  past  along 
the  blue — in  short,  I  am  going  to  divert  myself  in  as 
fantastic  a  manner  as  I  please,  and  if  you  look  for 
order,  sobriety,  regularity,  arrangement,  then  —  burn 
this  letter. 

But  what  am  I  so  fagged  about  ?  Not  about  Aris- 
totle, ethics,  logic,  metaphysics.  Trust  me,  their  dust 
has  been  undisturbed  till  this  morning  when,  counting 
on  my  love  of  slumber,  one  of  our  maids  has  been  mak- 
ing a  razzia  in  my  study,  and  stirred  up  every  atom 
that  would  have  settled  down  as  undisturbed  as  the 
ashes  that  entomb  Pompeii  into  a  very  noxious  activity 
—not  these,  stone-cracker  mine — but  work  that  I  like 
and  enjoy  and  revel  in,  work  that  tempts  me  to  show 
myself  that  Samson's  locks  are  not  yet  quite  shorn,  that 
the  power  of  fag  has  not  yet  quite  gone  out  of  me,  work, 
Anecdotico  —  Historico — Antiquarian.  These  are  my 
titles  in  future,  I  doubt  which  will  look  the  nobler, 
Dr.  Dawkins,  F.R.S.,  F.G.S.  or  J.  R.  Green,  Esq., 
A.H.A.  Pshaw !  it  looks  provokingly  ridiculous — 
Oh,  D.,  I  wish  you  could  see  my  extemporised 
study ;  the  reading  -  table  standing  like  the  peak 
of  Teneriffe  out  of  the  midst  of  a  very  sea  of  books, 
papers,  notes,  extracts,  memorandums,  pens  in  all  stages 
of  crushableness,  paper  in  all  degrees  of  rumble-ification  ; 


30  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

but  Teneriffe  itself  being  surmounted  by  a  pyramid  of 
antiquarianism,  Anthony  a  Wood,  Gutch,  Aubrey, 
Peshall  —  a  pyramid  with  a  hole  in  its  side  just  big 
enough  for  a  clean  sheet  and  a  busy  pen  that  goes 
merrily  "  scratch,  scratch  "  through  the  livelong  day. 
Each  paper  consists  of  four  sheets,  and  I  hope  by  the 
end  of  the  week  to  have  finished  about  ten,  and  to  be 
master  of  my  earnings,  "  earnings  "  (doesn't  the  word 
ring  again  ?)  to  the  extent  of  as  many  guineas.  And 
then  the  stores  of  miscellaneous  information  I  am 
gathering  into  that  olla-podrida  of  a  brain  of  mine, 
the  numberless  little  facts  that  will  all  coin  down  into 
money,  fresh  new  sovereigns  with  a  golden  chink — for 
as  to  fame  I  begin  to  despise  that  with  the  class  list. 
No — a  fig  for  fame — a  cosy  vicarage,  a  heap  of  books, 
a  good  pen  and  a  deluge  of  paper,  and  I  could  be  as 
happy  as  a  king.  I  have  been  asked  twenty  times  in  as 
many  days,  "John,  John,  when  will  you  be  serious?'* 
Never.  I  have  thrown  my  last  chance  away  ;  I  had  an 
invitation  the  other  day  which  I  could  hardly  refuse,  to 
join  in  a  water  picnic-party  with  some  whom  I  knew  to 
be  "  serious  people."  I  went  and  found  some  fifty, 
forty  of  whom  were  in  the  same  predicament  as  your 
humble  servant, — they  knew  the  hostess  but  they  knew 
not  one  another.  It  was  thought  too  "serious  a  matter" 
to  introduce  such  a  number,  and  they  were  themselves 
too  serious  to  shake  down  into  acquaintance.  I  went  up 
to  one  who  looked  the  least  serious,  and  was  bored  for 
an  hour  with  the  rifle -corps  and  the  designs  of 
1'Empereur.  I  was  seized  on  by  another  who  gave  me 
the  whole  detail  of  paper-making,  apropos  of  a  paper 
mill  which  we  passed,  till  I  stumped  him  on  a  question 
which  I  had  got  up  among  my  odds  and  ends — the 
paper  duties — drawbacks,  and  the  like.  I  fled  to  the 
ladies  and  secured  such  a  serious  companion  that  I  was 
forced,  in  self-defence,  to  get  rid  of  her  by  declaring 
(horrible  dictu)  my  love  for  the  stage.  What  marvel 
that  a  young  ensign  who  accompanied  us  was  driven  to 
drink  and  inebriation  ;  what  wonder  that  I,  the  most 


i  EARLY  LIFE  31 

staid  of  personages,  when  once  I  did  meet  with  a 
"  worldly "  demoiselle,  flirted  with  her  incessantly  all 
the  way  home  to  the  scandal  of  every  "  proper  "  person 
in  the  company.  No  !  I  won't  be  serious  ;  I  can  be 
gloomy,  blue -devilish,  petulant,  sulky,  but  I  can't  be 
serious.  When  I  am  "  heavenly  minded "  I  must 
laugh.  I  believe  the  time  when  I  am  most  "  good  "  is 
the  time  when  I  am  tossing  about  some  little  tiny 
prattlers  that  have  been  long  looking  out  for  "  On 
Green  "  and  the  sweets  in  his  pockets,  and  laughing  at 
their  little  chatter  and  rippling  little  chuckles. 

Do  you  like  singing,  Dawkins  ?  Do  you  like  it, 
love  it,  adore  it  ?  I  have  been  listening  to  a  voice 
lately  that  forced  me  to  think  in  how  many  hours  I 
could  be  sung  into  a  declaration.  Ah,  sweet  Circean 
gift  of  song,  truly  should  he  be  bound,  as  I  am,  to  the 
mast  and  drifting  over  a  pathless  sea,  who  would  listen 
to  your  strains  and  yet  remain  unenslaved.  But  since  I 
could  not  fly  Circe  herself  has  fled ;  she  was  but  a  visitor, 
a  "  wandering  voice  "  as  Wordsworth  sings.  Positively, 
D.,  though  for  a  year  or  so  I  have  been  chanting  to 
myself  like  a  cuckoo  "  old  bachelor,  old  bachelor,"  I 
believe  I  shall  end  in  marriage, — and  with  whom  ?  I 
have  not  settled  on  the  individual,  but  I  can  tell  you  the 
species.  Not  the  beautiful — your  Junos,  Minervas,  or 
Venus's — but  some  quiet,  demure  little  party  whose 
beauty  at  the  best  will  be  that  of  expression  ;  who  won't 
mind  pets,  humours,  and  eccentricities  ;  who  will  never 
invade  my  study  or  pop  in  on  my  musings  with  some 
vapid  suggestion  to  visit  the  Blinks's  or  some  bothering 
inquiry  about  papering  and  painting.  Some  one  who 
won't  talk  of  her  love,  or  expect  demonstrations  in 
return,  but  whose  love  will  be  like  sunshine,  cheering 
and  warming  and  comforting,  and  lighting  up  all  the 
dark  corners  of  one's  morbid  temperament.  Some  one 
who  can  decipher  my  horrible  scrawl  and  copy  my 
manuscripts  for  the  printer.  Some  one  who  can  pet  our 
little  ones  without  spoiling  them,  who  will  care  for  me 
without  overcaring  for  me,  who  will  be  charitable  with- 


32  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

out  any  anxiety  for  niggers  at  Timbuctoo  ;  and  good 
without  confession  twice  a  week  or  working  slippers  for 
some  "  dear  "  curate.  Some  one  who  can  play  without 
being  constantly  strumming  ;  who  can  paint  without 
having  her  fingers  always  smudgy  ;  who  can  contrive  a 
good  dinner  and  yet  not  degenerate  into  a  mere  house- 
keeper. Ah !  vanitas  vanitatum,  lady  of  my  dream, 
unfindable  among  human  flesh  and  blood,  remind 
Dawkins  of  his  promise,  and  bid  him  good-bye  from 
his  friend.  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

13  HIGH  STREET,  OXFORD. 

MY  DEAR  DAWKINS — I  should,  I  fear,  have  wholly 
forgotten  my  promise  to  you  had  I  not  been  reminded 
of  it  by  an  incident  which  recalled  to  my  memory  your 
pertinacious  theories  on  the  distinction  or  confusion 
between  Instinct  and  Reason. 

On  returning  home,  I  found  a  room  for  the  time 
unoccupied  and  unfurnished.  My  brother  and  I,  by 
begging  sundry  chairs  and  tables,  have  managed  to 
make  ourselves  a  very  rough  but  comfortable  study, 
where  no  intruding  relative  or  slavey  may,  under  pain 
of  a  shower  of  books,  chessboard,  desk,  and  ink-bottle, 
venture  to  intrude.  From  the  window  of  this  sanctum 
I  gain  a  view,  which,  if  it  cannot  vie  with  your  country 
landscape  in  freshness  and  colouring,  is  far  their  superior 
in  variety  and  interest.  In  my  front  the  prospect  is 
bounded  by  the  long  reach  of  Jesus,  where  now  no 
chimneys  smoke  and  vacant  scouts  lounge  idly  through 
the  Quad — no  bell  tingles — sad  harbinger  of  compulsory 
chapel — from  the  small  belfry  which  is  right  before  me 
or  the  bell  turret  of  Balliol  which  peeps  over  the 
intervening  roof.  Farther  to  my  right  a  picturesque 
chestnut  hides  Exeter,  but  through  a  gap  in  it  I  see  the 
unslated  rafters  of  the  new  chapel.  Thence  from  the 
Temple,  or  whatever  is  the  name  of  that  queerest  of 
buildings  which  surmounts  the  theatre,  my  eye  wanders 


i  EARLY  LIFE  33 

along  a  wilderness  of  pinnacles  which  mark  the  site  of 
the  schools  to  the  towering  dome  of  the  Radcliffe  ; 
while,  through  an  interval  in  the  surrounding  buildings, 
I  catch  a  glimpse  of  one  of  those  peculiar  towers  of  All 
Souls,  which  Sir  Christopher  seems  to  have  built  in  a 
fancy  for  square  telescopes  inverted. 

But  not  to  digress  further — the  main  prospect  from 
my  window  consists  of  no  less  picturesque  an  object 
than  the  market  roof,  with  its  long  ridge  of  slates,  its 
leaden  gutters,  its  glass  skylight,  its  spouts  descending 
earthward,  and  its  chimneys  towering  to  the  sky.  There 
bask  in  a  pleasant  and  sunlit  solitude  the  interesting 
creatures,  whose  habits  and  customs  I  have  of  late  been 
observing  with  a  view  to  the  solution  of  that  tangled 
question,  "  Have  animals  reason  or  not  ?  " 

No  sooner  has  my  first  nap  commenced  than  my 
ear,  which  grows  more  and  more  acute  as  my  eyes  grow 
duller,  catches  a  faint  mew,  answered  by  a  series  of 
similar  noises  from  distant  quarters.  As  the  animals,  in 
obedience  to  the  signal,  approach  nearer  to  each  other, 
the  cries  grow  louder  and  louder,  till,  uniting  in  as  close 
proximity  as  possible  to  my  bedroom  window,  they  set 
up  a  ceaseless  anthem  of  squeals,  mews,  shrieks,  squalls  ; 
in  fact,  a  thousand  different  noises  which  no  dictionary 
has  yet  given  equivalents  for.  When  wearied  of  this 
diversion  a  solitary  snarl  gives  the  signal  for  other  sport, 
which  comprises  an  equal  variety  of  equally  horrible 
sounds,  till,  after  half  an  hour's  uninterrupted  discord, 
they  consent  to  retire,  save,  perhaps,  some  vindictive 
old  tabby  who  shrieks  alone  for  another  hour  or  so. 
I  won't  weary  you  with  a  picture  of  my  agonies  as  I  lie 
tossing  and  writhing,  my  fingers  in  my  ears,  yet  unable 
to  exclude  a  single  note  of  this  diabolical  caterwauling. 
Oftentimes,  unable  to  bear  it,  I  start  from  the  sheets, 
seize  some  destructive  missile  and  throw  up  the  window 
— only  to  behold  my  foes  sitting  in  conscious  security  on 
a  skylight.  I  have,  indeed,  some  hope  yet  of  revenge, 
as  I  am  in  communication  with  the  Market  Commis- 


34  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

sioners  for  permission,  under  these  circumstances,  to 
smash  a  skylight  or  so  ;  but,  till  leave  is  obtained,  I 
must  endure  these  midnight  tortures  without  hope  of 
prevention  or  alleviation. 

You  will  naturally  inquire  what  could  be  the  cause 
of  all  this.  My  brother  laughs  and  says  it  is  the  usual 
mode  of  feline  wooing  ;  my  guardian  has  a  theory  that 
it  is  a  way  they  have  of  fighting  ;  but  reasoning  on  the 
subject  by  the  help  of  your  suggestions,  I  have  found 
no  difficulty  in  tracing  it  to  revenge.  These  cats  have 
learnt  my  hostility  to,  and  persecution  of,  their  race  ; 
the  drowned  kittens  and  deceased  cats  are  no  doubt 
laid  at  my  door ;  they  have  determined  on  exacting  a 
terrible  vengeance,  and  have  laid  their  plots  with  all 
that  cunning  which  they  display  even  in  meaner  objects, 
on  stealing  a  mutton  chop,  or  licking  up  the  cream. 

The  problem  is  to  my  mind  solved.  Instinct  never 
could  guide  them  through  the  intricacies  of  so  vile  a  con- 
spiracy— no  !  nothing  short  of  a  hypothetical  Syllogism 
could  have  suggested  the  device  of  squatting  on  the 
glass  skylight.  Henceforth  your  investigations  may 
lie  in  a  more  domestic  quarter  ;  let  dogs  and  cows — the 
present  subjects  of  your  study — wander  unobserved, 
but  base  your  theory  and  found  your  fame  upon  cats.  .  .  . 
-Yours  affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

Diary 

[Green  went  to  Dublin  early  in  September ;  and  in 
his  diary  describes  a  visit  to  St.  Patrick's,  where  he 
heard  stories  about  Swift  from  a  verger  ;  and  thence 
to  Rosstrevor.  Next  day,  he  says]  "  We  whisked 
through  a  tract  of  English  landscape  to  Dundalk  ;  and 
were  driven  by  a  civil,  dare-devil,  gambling  scamp  into 
some  of  the  most  delicious  scenery  in  the  world.  We 
swept  round  the  backs  of  the  hills  into  a  country  of  bogs 
and  rocks,  where  the  turf  piles  lay  like  brown  dots 
around,  and  the  stone  walls  cut  up  every  field  into 
infinitesimal  portions.  Miserable  as  the  system  is,  it 


i  EARLY  LIFE  35 

gives  a  life  to  the  landscape  that  I  never  observed  else- 
where ;  there  are  none  of  those  reaches  of  field  upon 
field,  those  long  sweeps  of  crops  or  meadow,  without 
sign  of  man  or  man's  dwelling-place  that  often  give  me 
a  sense  of  almost  painful  loneliness  in  the  midst  of  an 
English  landscape.  Every  field  has  its  little  hut,  its 
potato-garden  close  hugging  it,  and  some  pig  or  boy 
crawling  about  its  door.  Up  through  Lord  Clare- 
mont's  park  into  the  hills,  all  the  vale  of  Newry  bursts 
on  it  with  its  hills  sweeping  in  the  background  to 
the  sea  on  the  one  hand,  far  away  landward  on  the 
other  ;  the  lower  ridges  with  the  pines  thick-climbing 
up  from  the  river  beneath.  A  trick  of  the  driver's 
betrayed  us  into  a  long  pull  across  to  Rosstrevor,  the 
livelier  for  the  chat  of  the  two  boys  who  pulled  us  ;  one, 
the  elder  and  graver  of  eighteen,  the  other  a  brown- 
cheeked,  quick-eyed  Milesian  of  fifteen.  The  boy  was 
full  of  the  sea, — of  the  vessels  that  put  in  for  Newry, 
of  the  Greek  corn-brig  "  with  all  the  crew  in  petticoats," 
but  above  all  of  the  heroism  of  Captain  Kelly,  who  had 
lately  lost  his  life  on  the  coast  in  attempting  to  bring 
the  crew  off  a  wreck.  Her  boat  was  swamped,  his 
accoutrements  were  too  heavy  for  him  ;  "  he  just  put 
up  his  hands  and  said  '  Good-bye,  boys,'  and  went  down, 
sir."  Ah !  if  we  have  no  Homeridas  and  no  epics  to 
chaunt,  if  our  ballads  are  no  longer  sung  in  market  and 
hall, — we  have  still  our  hero-songs  of  the  sea,  and  bright- 
eyed  boys  to  chaunt  them. 

[On  Sunday,  Green  heard  a  prosy  sermon,  and 
remarks  that  the  prayer  for  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  "that 
he  may  wield  the  sword  committed  to  his  hand  by  Her 
Most  Gracious  Majesty,"  is  "  a  raw-head  and  bloody- 
bones  way  of  teaching  loyalty."  He  then  went  to  Belfast, 
and  attended  a  revival  service  in  a  chapel.  It  was  "  filled 
decently  with  quiet,  sober-looking  people  ;  and  he  was 
chiefly  struck  by  the  sensible  and  interesting  character 
of  the  lecture.  Two  or  three  converts  gave  addresses, 
but  there  was  no  "  screaming  or  shrieking  ; "  and  he 
summed  up  his  impressions  by  saying  as  he  left,  "  This 


36  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

is  God's  work  and  God  grant  it  may  go  on  as  now."  1 
After  a  visit  to  the  Giant's  Causeway,  he  was  back  at 
Oxford  about  September  20.] 

To  W.  Boyd  Datvkins 

September  1859. 

I  am  sure,  my  dear  D.,  that  civilisation  never  blessed 
man  with  two  greater  boons  than  a  pen  and  a  sheet  of 
paper.  Here  am  I  book  weary — and  yet  the  book  is 
no  tedious  one,  but  the  tedium-fit  is  on  me  and  must 
out ;  here  am  I  flinging  myself  down  for  a  lounge  and 
a  chat  with  you  on  this  broad  sheet,  just  as  I  should 
fling  myself  into  your  easy-chair.  Now  take  care  not 
to  bother  me  for  news,  or  expect  me  to  talk  epigrams 
or  clever  the  Lord-knows-whats  ;  remember  I  have  only 
dropped  in  for  a  lounge  and  a  chat,  and  mean  to  be  as 
lazy  and  as  rambling  as  I  please.  And  as  nothing  is 
pleasanter  to  a  lazy  soul  than  a  bit  of  a  lecture,  allow 
me  to  rap  your  knuckles  pretty  severely  for  your  last 
communication.  I  own  to  a  great  liking  for  your 
correspondence — 'tis  such  a  genuine  olla-podrida  of 
love,  chit-chat,  riding,  Homer,  dancing,  and  geology, 
that  it  has  all  the  pleasurable  effect  on  me  that  John- 
son's Dictionary  had  on  the  old  lady,  who  averred  (as  I 
do  of  yours)  "  that  it  was  the  most  charming  reading  in 
the  world  ;  indeed,  its  only  drawback  was  a  trifling 
want  of  connection."  But  this  is  the  very  point  that 
pleases  me  in  your  letters,  bits  of  news,  bits  of  senti- 
ment, a  poem  or  a  pebble  are  tumbled  out  of  your  bag 
in  that  genial  hearty  fashion  that  recalls  the  old  rooms, 
and  the  chat  that  rouses  me  out  of  the  blues.  There 
is  a  realism,  a  Dawkinsism,  in  it  which  is  the  very  essence 
of  letter-writing.  M.  writes  as  if  he  meant  to  print, 
and  etiquette  requires  the  same  printable  fustian  in  my 
replies.  But  with  you  one  feels  as  though  one  had  had 
a  heavy  grind,  and  here  was  the  very  fellow  to  get  tea 
for  one  and  cheer  one  up.  And  this  is  the  great  charm 

1  He  was    much  impressed    by  a   pamphlet   upon  this   subject   by  Archdeacon 
Stopford,  called  The  Work  and  the  Counterwork. 


i  EARLY  LIFE  37 

of  letter- writing  that,  though  you  and  I  are  far  away, 
yet  chatting  thus  I  seem  to  have  you  on  the  other  side 
of  the  table,  and  to  be  drawing  for  perennial  supplies 
from  the  "  silver  teapot." 

Your  note  was  waiting  for  me  when  I  returned  from 
Ireland. 

I  have  been  to  the  land  of  the  Paddies, 
And  dined  at  the  Gresham  genteelly, 
And  peeled  the  potatoes  so  mealy, 
But  of  all  that  I  sought  there, 
Picked  up  there,  or  bought  there, 
There  was  nought  to  compare  with  their  whiskey  and  water. 

Much  boding  and  trembling  and  fearing 
I  crossed  o'er  the  say  to  sweet  Erin — 
No  boat  e'er  was  tauter, 
But  wind  and  waves  fought  her, 
Sick  and  ill,  how  I  longed  for  some  whiskey  and  water. 

I  traversed  bold  Antrim,  defiant, 

Till  I  trod  the  famed  road  of  the  giant  (Giant's  Causeway), 
But  my  tooth — the  wind  caught  her 
I  wished  each  hour  shorter, 
And  aching  groaned  forth  only  "  Whiskey  and  water  !  " 

I  grant  you  the  copyright  of  this  most  exquisite 
lyric,  in  right  of  the  chagrin  you  will  feel  at  not  having 
been  with  me  in  my  view  of  those  basaltic  formations. 
Of  course  they  were  lost  on  me  (in  a  geological  sense  I 
mean),  but  I  remembered  my  poor  F.G.S.  in  prospective, 
and  bought  you  a  couple  of  specimens  that  looked 
uncommon.  Debit  one  bob  to  our  friendship  account. 
Jenkins  is  up.  He  has  been  mobbed  at  St.  George's, 
half  for  his  Puseyism,  half  for  his  beard,  but  very 
characteristically  finds  that  the  mob  were  very  civil 
and  good-hearted  people  in  reality. 

I  presume  I  ought  to  give  you  some  account  of 
myself,  but  really  my  existence  is  so  monotonous  that 
I  am  afraid  of  wearying  you.  Let  me  in  preference 
recall  the  pleasantest  companion  I  ever  had  in  my  life. 
"  A  new  flame  "  you  will  say.  Hear  and  judge.  At 
Dublin,  auguring  sickness  and  in  a  silent  moody 
humour,  I  stepped  aboard  the  packet.  I  was  soon 


38  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

busy  with  the  luggage,  and  that  settled,  strolled  sulkily 
along  deck.  A  lady  in  the  distance  bowed.  "Some 
absurd  Hibernian  mistake,"  thought  I.  As  I  passed 
she  bowed  again.  I  borrowed  resolution  from  despair 
and  explained,  "  I  am  afraid  I  have  not  the  honour," 

etc.     "  Miss  P ,"  said  she,  throwing  up  her  veil. 

Now,  though  I  had  been  introduced  to  her  "mamma" 
I  had  never  spoken  a  word  to  her  younger  ladyship, 
but  that  was  no  business  of  mine.  We  sat  down  and 
chatted  the  whole  way  to  Holyhead.  Now  a  chat  of 
five  hours  without  intermission  must  surely  have  turned 
upon,  or  included,  some  serious  matter.  The  beauty 
of  this  chat  was  that  it  was  pure  nonsense  throughout. 
The  naivete  of  my  companion  was  diverting.  "  She 
detested  nonsense,  silly  nonsense,  which  gentlemen 
seemed  to  consider  themselves  privileged  to  address 
to  ladies,  as  though  our  sex  "  (with  a  pretty  toss  of  the 
head)  "  had  weaker  brains  than  their  own."  "  But 
what  has  our  own  chat  been  but  nonsense?"  said  I. 
"  Oh,  but  not  silly  nonsense,"  said  my  little  casuist. 
We  secured  the  same  carriage  at  Holyhead,  and  no 
sooner  did  our  chat  flag  than  out  came  "  the  language 
of  flowers."  Could  anything  have  been  more  childish  ? 
Nothing  at  any  rate  would  have  been  more  amusing. 
We  chose  and  laughed,  and  laughed  and  chose  again, 
till  my  little  charmer  grew  desperately  sleepy.  "  Make 
me  your  sleeping-post,"  I  whispered.  "  Indeed  I  won't," 
was  the  uncompromising  reply.  Nod  upon  nod,  the 
lovely  little  face  drooped  and  drooped,  till  Nature  com- 
pelled her  to  yield  ;  she  smiled  a  sort  of  coquettish 
protest,  and  soon  her  little  head  rested  on  my  shoulder, 
and  she  was  fast  asleep.  Oh,  pretty  girl-faces,  what 
wondrous  fools  you  make  of  us  cynics  !  You  may 
have  guessed — what  is  for  the  present  a  secret — that  I 
do  not  intend  to  go  up  for  a  class.  This  will  fall  like 
a  bombshell  among  the  Dons,  and  I  shall  have  to 
endure  a  few  skirmishes  with  the  Sublime  William  and 
his  fellows,  and  not  a  few  black  looks  from  quarters 
which  I  care  more  about.  But  people  are  beginning  to 


i  EARLY  LIFE  39 

comprehend  that  what  I  will  to  do,  I  do  ;  and  if  they  are 
philosophers  the  Dons  will  soon  give  over  a  struggle  in 
which  they  cannot  but  be  beaten.  At  any  rate  I  have 
counted  the  cost  and  thrown  my  class  to  the  winds. 
My  reasons  would  be  too  long  for  a  letter  which  is 
already  of  monstrous  dimensions,  and  which  has,  I  am 
sure,  earned  those  antiquarian  entries,  etc.,  of  whose 
existence  I  am  beginning  to  grow  not  a  little  sceptical. 
—Believe  me,  dear  D.,  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  M.  J. 

March  1860. 
[Written  from  Theale.] 

"  My  business  "  has  been  of  the  most  varied  descrip- 
tion. I  have  been  geologising,  archasologising,  physio- 
logising,  studying  bone-caves,  old  ruins,  and  stomachs  ; 
and,  in  addition,  lecturing,  training  a  choir,  and  con- 
ducting a  college -service  down  in  the  moor.  The 
singing  is  of  the  vilest.  The  boys  study  vocalising 
with  clenched  teeth,  and  the  girls  are  universally  nasal. 
One  or  two  of  the  old  band,  who  have  been  superseded 
by  the  harmonium,  still  attempt  by  their  voices  to  pre- 
serve the  memory  of  departed  violins  and  hautboys,  a 
solitary  flute  survives,  "  dull,  melancholy,  slow."  The 
clerk,  whose  bass  has  rusted  into  a  nasal  tone,  leads  this 
promising  choir.  I  did  not  attempt  to  interfere  with 
such  a  venerable  antiquity.  I  rested  my  hope  in  the 
youth.  These  hulking  young  farmers'  sons,  who  roar 
out  songs  round  the  kitchen  fire  and  choruses  at  the 
tavern,  —  the  young  ladies,  who,  after  six  days  of 
draggled  tails  and  mob-caps,  appear  on  Sunday  in 
the  gaudiest  hues  and  hugest- feathered  hats  to  pipe 
through  a  mouth-aperture  of  about  the  circumference 
of  a  shilling,  offered  (I  thought)  promise  of  a  mine  of 
vocal  wealth.  I  tried,  and  after  several  weeks'  endeavour 
have  enlarged  the  feminine  aperture  to  the  size  of  half- 
a-crown,  and  cajoled  the  farmers  into  a  low  growl 
which  I  compliment  as  bass.  But  difficulties  thicken 


40  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

round  us.  There  is  not  a  single  ear  in  my  choir  or  in 
the  parish  ;  the  oJd  choir  and  clerk  scent  my  intentions, 
and  are  meditating  mutiny ;  and  my  friend  the  parson 
thinks  it  "  would  not  be  wise  to  attempt  a  change." 


To  W,  Boyd  Dawktns 

OXFORD,  June  26,  1860. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  so  carefully  packed  up  all 
my  notepaper  and  the  like,  that  I  must  entreat  pardon 
for  writing  to  you  on  odds  and  ends.  The  family, 
visitors,  etc.,  are  all  busy  downstairs  in  the  Sabbath 
amusement  of  "  cakes  and  wine."  So  I  have  half  an 
hour  of  my  unbored  self  to  scribble  you  a  few  notes  on 
what  has  been  going  on  since  your  going  off.  My 
brother  recompensed  the  tender  care  bestowed  on  his 
smalls  by  an  excessit,  evasit,  which  threw  on  my 
shoulders  the  charge  of  a  squad  of  lionesses  while  he 
was  enjoying  his  otium  cum  bat  and  wickets  at  Sher- 
borne.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  have  blessed  the 
rain  whose  visits  have  given  me  occasional  afternoons 
of  respite  and  solitude.  I  have  no  one  up  with  me 
now.  .  .  . 

I  suppose  you  saw  all  about  the  Commemoration  in 
the  papers.  The  Times  report  was  correct  enough.  It 
was  very  tame  and  slow — the  effort  at  propriety  succeeded 
in  begetting  a  wondrous  dulness.  I  heard  but  one  new 
joke,  and  that  was  wondrous  as  on  an  old  subject. 
In  one  of  the  dead  pauses  a  wag  called  on  "Old  Bess" 
for  a  song.  By -the -bye  there  was  another.  After 
cneering  the  ladies,  the  Dons,  and  the  undergrads, 
some  one  sang  out  "a  cheer  for  everybody — except 
John  Bright."  A  combination  of  extensive  charity 
with  unflinching  Conservatism  which  deserves  com- 
memoration. The  Newdigate  was  more  Newdigate 
than  it  has  been  of  late.  The  gentleman  stands  on 
Guadarrama's  steep  and  looks  down  on  his  theme — the 
Escurial.  If  the  weather  has  been  at  all  similar  in 


i  EARLY  LIFE  41 

Spain  to  the  weather  in  England,  it  is  to  be  hoped  the 
Muses  provided  him  with  a  mackintosh. 

I  suppose  you  want  to  know  a  little  of  myself — at  least 
my  vanity  won't  suppose  the  contrary.  Thanks  to  the 
rain  I  have  been  able  to  read  a  little,  and  am  wonderfully 
interested  at  present  in — what  do  you  think  ? — Lyell's 
Elements.  I  much  fear  that  the  sermon  this  morning 
passed  unheeded  into  the  Paris  Basin,  at  least  it  ought 
to  have  done  so  if  it  wished  to  gain  my  attention,  for 
there  were  my  thoughts  at  the  time.  I  don't  think  I  have 
ever  read  anything  more  admirable  than  Lyell's  account 
of  it.  The  great  value  of  the  whole  book  consists,  to 
my  unscientific  mind,  in  its  scrupulous  adherence  to 
the  rule  of  reading  the  Past  by  the  Present.  For 
instance  (though  I  don't  doubt  you  will  smile  at 
my  error)  I  have  always  attributed  abrupt  contortions 
of  strata — such  as  the  zigzag  fissures  of  coal-mines  and 
the  like — to  sudden  and  violent  displacement.  Lyell 
takes  one  down  a  coal-mine,  shows  one  the  gradual 
pressing  up  of  the  argillaceous  bottom  of  the  gallery 
till  the  whole  cavity  is  filled.  Days,  months,  even 
years  may  elapse  between  the  first  bending  of  the  pave- 
ment and  the  time  of  its  reaching  the  roof.  I  had 
formed  quite  a  different  notion  of  Lyell  from  your 
conversation.  I  expected  a  dull,  dry  German,  and 
found  one  of  the  'cutest  and  most  entertaining  gentle- 
men I  have  ever  met.  .  .  . — Yours  very  truly, 

J.  R.  G. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

13  HIGH  STREET,  OXFORD, 
June  28,  1860. 

As  you  may  suppose,  my  dear  Dax,  I  have  become, 
at  the  cost  of  a  sov.,  an  A.B.A.,  which  cabalistical 
sounds  signify  "Associate  of  the  British  Association," 
and  give  you  the  privilege  of  attending  the  meetings 
of  that  highly  scientific  body.  Facetias  seem  to  be  the 
order  of  the  day — in  deference  to  the  ladies,  I  suppose. 


42  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Just  as  the  Dons  strive  to  rub  off  their  dust,  and  rub 
up  their  wits  to  greet  these  fair  creatures  at  Com- 
memoration. Sedgwick  was  facetious,  Phillips  facetious, 
Crawford  facetious,  Murchison  facetious. 

But  this  is  all  beside  the  point.  I  sate  down  speci- 
ally to  tell  you  of  the  honour  Phillips  did  you  to-day. 
He  gave,  in  an  opening  paper,  a  sketch  of  the  circa- 
Oxon  geology,  especially  at  Stonesfield  and  Shotover  ; 
and  then  at  the  end  dipped  into  the  Saurians.  Out  came 
that  dear  old  Toebone  (bless  that  Cetiosaur!),  and  the 
audience  were  informed  that  they  were  indebted  for 
that  gratifying  sight  to  "  my  friend  Mr.  Dawkins !  " 

There's  news  for  you,  old  fellow.  F.G.S.  is  nothing 
to  this.  Oh,  do  find  another  toebone  for  next  year, 
and  believe  me  I'll  throw  up  a  curacy  to  attend  and 
hear  you  kudized. 

Hope  you  are  enjoying  yourself,  and  remain  yours 
very  truly,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

July  3,  1860. 

[A  passage  from  this  letter  is  given  in  the  Life  of 
Huxley p,  see  vol.  i.  pp.  179-189,  where  will  be  found  a 
full  account  of  the  famous  encounter  between  Huxley 
and  Bishop  Wilberforce.] 

I  steal  a  bit  of  Dick's  notepaper,  my  dear  Dax,  to 
tell  you  that  I  shall  be  down  in  Somerset  on  Thursday 
next.  Williamson  returns  on  Saturday.  Could  you 
come  over  at  the  beginning  of  the  week,  and  do  that 
bone-cave  in  which  I  began  to  feel  a  much  stronger 
interest  as  I  got  a  clearer  idea  of  its  period  ?  The 
mention  of  it  reminds  me  that  I  saw  your  "  friend  " 
Dr.  Falconer  the  other  day.  A  good-humoured,  jocular 
Irishman,  whom  Lyell  styled  second  as  a  palaeonto- 
logist to  Owen  only  !  So  you  measure  swords  with  a 
creditable  antagonist.  He  has  not  as  yet  read  a  paper, 
but  he  rose  to  speak  on  one  of  the  most  notable  which 


i  EARLY  LIFE  43 

I  have  as  yet  heard  at  the  B.  A.  A  Mr.  C.  Moore 
who  lives  at  Bath,  found  in  a  quarry  in  its  neighbour- 
hood a  small  drift-deposit  of  the  Triassic  Epoch.  He 
carted  two  tons  of  it  home,  a  distance  of  twenty  miles, 
and  spent  two  years  in  washing,  sorting,  and  micro- 
scopically examining  it.  He  was  thus  enabled  to 
exhibit  about  three  hatfuls  of  fish  teeth ;  a  similar 
quantity  of  scales,  etc., — but  what  was  of  real  im- 
portance some  twenty  small  jawbones,  etc.,  of  mammals 
—unmistakable  mammals,  judicibus  professore  Eugeaco 
et  Doctore  Auceps "  (is  not  that  the  Latin  for 
Falconer  ?).  This  brings  them  far  lower,  you  see,  than 
even  the  Stonesfield  slate.  Some  two  such  remains  have 
been  found  in  the  Muschelkalk  in  Germany — with 
which  this  may  be  about  contemporaneous  —  but 
they  have  been  fought  over  and  disputed.  These 
twenty  put  an  extinguisher  on  all  question.  Lyell 
made  a  beautiful  speech  on  the  matter.  Paucity  of 
remains,  he  argued,  do  not  argue  paucity  of  animal 
life.  Were  we  left  to  infer  the  animal  creation  of  the 
present  day  from  the  deposits  of  the  Ganges  or  the 
Nile,  should  we  be  content  merely  with  the  few  species 
we  might  light  on  ?  Rather  (and  here  he  brought 
beautifully  in  the  principle  of  the  correlation  of  life) 
should  we  not  be  bound  to  infer  from  these  few  a  large 
quantity  of  species  as  yet  unfound  ?  Important  too — 
he  said — was  the  fact  that  up  to  that  time  all  the 
animals  thus  discovered  were  very  minute,  while  in 
this  last  deposit  were  found  remains  which  must  have 
been  of  an  animal  as  large  as  a  pole-cat,  a  size  which 
at  once  sweeps  away  all  hypotheses  founded  on  this 
fact  of  minuteness,  and  gives  us  an  ordinary  link  in 
the  common  series  of  animal  life.  Strongly  Darwinian, 
eh  ?  and  strongly  common-sense  too.  I  have  (after 
finishing  Lyell)  been  reading  Hugh  Miller's  posthumous 
book,  his  sketches  (originally  intended,  had  he  lived,  to 
form  the  basis  of  a  geologic  History  of  Scotland),  and 
I  have  been  much  struck  with  the  utter  weakness  of 
the  theory  to  which  he  clings  so  very  fondly,  of  the 


44  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

"definiteness"  of  organic  life,  its  "dead  stops,"  etc.  Such 
a  theory  required  and  justified  that  dioramic  view  of 
geology  which  Miller  adopts — picture  succeeding  picture 
in  strong  contrast — but  which  seems  to  me  utterly 
unwarrantable  and  unscientific.  Read  after  Lyell  he 
strikes  me  as  a  man  who  gathered  up  the  researches  of 
others  and  gave  them  a  dash  of  the  picturesque. 

I  am  afraid  I  am  boring  you  (I  always  bore  my 
friends  with  the  subject  I  have  on  hand),  but  now  I 
am  on  Hugh  Miller  it  reminds  me  that  I  have  made 
extracts  from  him — one  of  which  (of  the  period  of 
the  Tertiaries  down  to  the  post-pliocene  and  human 
epochs)  seems  truthful  and  good.  It  will  be  useful  for 
your  sketch  of  the  bone-cave  period,  as  it  is  drawn 
out  in  great  detail.  His  oolite  reminded  me  funnily 
of  yours  (a  great  compliment  by  the  way),  but  has  an 
Iguanodon  in  its  menagerie  which  I  don't  think  you 
possessed.  It  may  be  fun  to  read,  so  I  will  bring 
my  notebook  down.  I  was  introduced  to  Robert 
Chambers  (the  supposed  author  of  the  Vestiges]  the 
other  day,  and  heard  him  chuckle  over  the  episcopal 
defeat.  I  haven't  told  you  that  story,  have  I  ?  On 
Saturday  morning  I  met  Jenkins  going  to  the  Museum. 
We  joined  company,  and  he  proposed  going  to  Section 
D,  the  Zoology,  etc.,  "  to  hear  the  Bishop  of  Oxford 
smash  Darwin."  "  Smash  Darwin !  Smash  the 
Pyramids,"  said  I,  in  great  wrath,  and  muttering  some- 
thing about  "  impertinence,"  which  caused  Jenkins  to 
explain  that  "  the  Bishop  was  a  first-class  in  mathe- 
matics, you  know,  and  so  has  a  right  to  treat  on 
scientific  matters,"  which  of  course  silenced  my  cavils. 
Well,  when  Professor  Draper  had  ceased  his  hour  and 
a  half  of  nasal  Yankeeism,  up  rose  "Sammivel,"  and 
proceeded  to  act  the  smasher ;  the  white  chokers,  who 
were  abundant,  cheered  lustily,  a  sort  of  "  Pitch  it 
into  him  "  cheer,  and  the  smasher  got  so  uproarious  as 
to  pitch  into  Darwin's  friends — Darwin  being  smashed 
— and  especially  Professor  Huxley.  Still  the  white 
chokers  cheered,  and  the  smasher  rattled  on.  "  He 


i  EARLY  LIFE  45 

had  been  told  that  Professor  Huxley  had  said  that  he 
didn't  see  that  it  mattered  much  to  a  man  whether  his 
grandfather  was  an  ape  or  not.  Let  the  learned 
Professor  speak  for  himself"  and  the  like.  Which 
being  ended — and  let  me  say  that  such  rot  never  fell 
from  episcopal  lips  before — arose  Huxley,  young,  cool, 
quiet,  sarcastic,  scientific  in  fact  and  in  treatment,  he 
gave  his  lordship  such  a  smashing  as  he  may  meditate 
on  with  profit  over  his  port  at  Cuddesdon.  This  was 
the  exordium,  "  I  asserted,  and  I  repeat — that  a  man 
has  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  having  an  ape  for  his 
grandfather.  If  there  were  an  ancestor  whom  I  should 

O 

feel  shame  in  recalling,  it  would  rather  be  a  man,  a 
man  of  restless  and  versatile  intellect,  who,  not  content 
with  an  equivocal  success  in  his  own  sphere  of  activity, 
plunges  into  scientific  questions  with  which  he  has  no 
real  acquaintance,  only  to  obscure  them  by  an  aimless 
rhetoric,  and  distract  the  attention  of  his  hearers  from 
the  real  point  at  issue  by  eloquent  digressions  and 
skilled  appeals  to  religious  prejudice."  I  will  tell  you 
more  when  I  see  you. — Till  then,  believe  me,  dear  Dax, 
your  very  affectionate,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

OXFORD,  September  22,  1860. 

DEAR  DAX — I  wrote  crossly  yesterday  ;  happily  I 
wrote  to  you,  who  have  always  the  kindly  good  sense 
to  laugh  at,  and  to  laugh  away,  my  ill-humour.  My 
crossness  was  simply  the  result  of  an  intense  wretched- 
ness at  being  left  to  make  up  my  mind  for  myself.  I 
always  need  a  Privy  Councillor.  When  once  I  begin 
to  deliberate  I  see  so  many  fair  plans  of  action — all 
with  so  many  good  reasons  for  carrying  them  out — each 
with  a  counter-bundle  of  good  reasons  for  letting  them 
alone — that  to  resolve  on  any  one  is  impossible,  while 
to  do  nothing  is  painfully  ridiculous.  It  was  very 
vexatious  to  a  gentleman  of  this  character  to  find  his 
Councillor — his  Resolver — fled  speechless — "  the  oracles 


46  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

are  dumb."  Just  fancy  the  feelings  of  the  poor  Hellenic 
gentlemen  who  have  always  paid  their  fee,  and  had  their 
minds  duly  made  up  for  them  !  I  will  write  to  Warren 
to-morrow. 

We  had  Morrell's  great  dinner  to  the  Rifle  Corps 
here  last  Thursday.  Bishop,  Duke,  Heads  of  Houses, 
M.P.'s,  etc.,  all  in  robes  ;  a  pretty  sight  they  say  (the 
"  they  "  being  ladies).  At  the  end  of  the  proceedings 
Cooke  of  the  Chronicle  inserts  in  type  my  verses  against 
the  Rifle  Corps — unde  irae !  A  civic  festivity  comes 
off  on  Wednesday  —  the  "Beating  the  Bounds,"  a 
going  round  the  civic  borders.  As  civic  grub  is  good, 
and  civic  speeches  amusing,  I  think  "I  shall  be  there." 

My  vicar  writes  to  tell  me  he  wishes  me  to  get 
influence  over,  etc.,  the  "  young  men  "  of  the  parish. 
This,  the  very  sort  of  work  I  shall  like,  has  set  me 
planning,  as  you  may  fancy.  I  see  how  the  Ologies 
may  be  brought  in.  I  have  been  naughty  as  to  work 
lately — reading  Goethe  and  Schiller  instead  of  Paley 
and  Pearson — I  know  from  which  one  learns  the  truest 
theology.  I  look  forward  even  now  to  your  return. 
"  Come  where  glory  waits  thee." — Meanwhile,  believe 
me,  your  affectionate  friend,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

OXFORD,  October  2,  1860. 

[The  first  paragraph  refers  to  the  conclusion  of  a 
piece  of  family  business.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — The  governor  has  gone  to  a  civic 
dinner,  my  brother  to  a  city  lecture,  my  aunt  is  as  busy 
as  a  bee  ;  nobody  is  idle  but  I,  and  I  am  going  to 
devote  a  few  minutes  of  my  idleness  to  you.  First, 
W.'s  reply  has  been  all  that  I  could  wish,  sensible  in 
accepting  facts  as  facts,  generous  in  the  kindly  tone 
he  still  preserves  amid  circumstances  that  might  seem 
to  call  for  iratum  Patrem  ;  he  parts  from  me  as  I  would 
wish  him  to  part,  robing  himself  like  Cassar,  as  he  falls, 


i  EARLY  LIFE  47 

in  much  of  that  ideal  nobleness  which  circumstances  had 
begun  so  fatally  to  strip  him  of. 

For  myself  I  feel  like  an  emancipated  slave.  I  hardly 
knew  how  heavy  my  yoke  had  been  till  it  was  thus  once 
and  for  ever  broken  and  thrown  off.  Thanks  to  you, 
old  boy  !  I  should  never  have  had  the  resolution  to 
break  it  for  myself.  And  so,  for  the  five  hundredth 
time  in  my  life,  I  have  the  proud  satisfaction  of  turning 
round  on  myself  with  a  "  What  a  fool  I  have  been  !  " 
Not  that  I  wish  to  remain  wise  if  celibacy  be  wisdom. 
I  want  a  wife.  I  distrust  my  own  choice,  but  if  you 
should  know  of  a  suitable  article  it  would  be  friendly 
to  inform  me.  Only  a  few  provisos.  She  must  be 
intellectual  enough  to  sympathise  with  my  pursuits  ; 
orderly  and  resolute  enough  to  fill  up  those  two  vacant 
apartments  in  my  character.  It  may  be  as  well  for  her 
to  know  German,  and  to  love  Goethe.  Pretty,  though 
this  is  of  less  consequence,  as  I  shall  certainly  fancy  her 
so  after  six  months  ;  a  good  housekeeper,  with  a  little 
money  to  aid  in  floating  our  Noah's  ark,  with  its  future 
Shems  and  Japhets. 

Oh,  old  fellow,  how  I  wish  you  had  been  in  Oxford 
to  go  with  me  round  the  city  boundaries.  About 
once  in  eight  years  the  Mayor  has  to  do  this,  winding 
up  with  a  great  feed.  I  was  invited  and  went.  We 
marched  in  red  and  fur  (i.e.  the  Corporation),  cocked 
hats  and  mace,  down  the  High  to  Magdalen  Bridge. 
Here  we  dismissed  the  rifle  band,  the  aldermen  doffed 
their  robes,  the  bulk  of  the  crowd  dispersed,  but  the 
faithful  followed  the  Mayor  in  punts  across  the  stream, 
along  the  Cherwell  Meadows,  across  Christchurch  Mead 
by  the  side  of  the  ditch  that  runs  across  it,  and  then 
entering  some  house-boats  which  were  waiting  for  us 
with  the  ladies  on  board,  we  went  as  far  as  the  Long 
Bridge  where  the  city  boundary  stone  is  situated.  Here 
we  were  joined  by  the  king  of  the  Sclavonians,  a  club 
of  firemen  who  are  now  dying  out,  arrayed  in  alder- 
manic  costume,  with  a  royal  crown  of  "  real  gold,"  as 
the  ladies  all  averred,  upon  his  head.  His  Majesty  was 


48  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

presented  with  a  bottle  of  gin,  whose  head  he  graciously 
condescended  to  knock  off,  and  then  to  swallow  its 
contents.  Bidding  adieu  to  the  monarch  we  again 
returned,  bade  farewell  to  the  ladies,  and  punted  under 
those  arches  on  which  Randall's  house  stands  into  the 
Hincksey  meadows,  through  which,  muddy  as  they 
were,  we  proceeded  to  pound.  We  were  cheered  by 
the  merry  beat  of  the  city  drum — the  city  fife  having 
been  early  "  winded  "  and  dropped  behind.  "  You 
make  me  quite  wild,  you  do,"  said  the  drum,  as  he 
dragged  forward  his  lagging  comrade,  but  the  fife  was 
too  exhausted,  or  screwed,  to  reply.  At  Hincksey  we 
found  the  barrel  of  beer  which  the  tenant  is  bound  to 
offer  the  Mayor  on  such  occasions  stolen,  so  onwards 
we  trudged  towards  Godstow,  only  pausing  at  Botley 
to  shy  bread  and  cheese,  and  pipes  and  ale  at  the  crowd  ; 
you  may  fancy  what  a  glorious  scramble  it  was.  My 
party  now  led  "  across  country,"  but  getting  pounded 
at  the  second  hedge,  I  was  picked  up  by  the  alderman 
who  was  comfortably  ensconced  in  a  punt,  and  conveyed 
to  the  dinner  at  Godstow.  The  feed  at  an  end,  off  we 
started  again,  but  as  the  plank-bearers  had  got  too 
drunk  to  stir,  the  Mayor  had  to  jump  ditches — item 
the  mace.  The  Mayor  did  wonders,  and  reflected  credit 
on  the  city.  The  mace  made  oft  acquaintance  with  the 
mud.  So  we  emerged  on  Portmeadow,  which  is  a  per- 
fect quagmire  now,  only  to  be  paddled  through,  and, 
crossing  the  two  roads,  descended  into  the  vale  of  the 
Cherwell,  where  the  aldermen  again  embarked,  while  I 
managed  to  scramble  over  hedges  and  ditches  as  best  I 
might,  and  in  a  mangled  and  fragmentary  condition 
emerged  near  Holy  well  Church,  rejoined  the  procession 
at  Magdalen  Bridge,  and  marched  home  to  the  "  sound 
of  trumpets."  As  a  bit  of  pluck,  I  finished  the  evening 
at  the  theatre  ;  but  didn't  I  pay  for  it  the  next  day. 
Good  luck  to  you  and  your  work.  Tell  me  in  your 
next,  as  it  is  quite  jolly  to  find  you  swimming  about  so 
cozily  among  the  Tritons  of  Science. — And  believe  me, 
yours  very  sincerely,  J.  R.  G. 


j  EARLY  LIFE  49 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

GOSWELL  ROAD,  E.G., 
(end  of  December)  1 860. 

[He  has  been  just  ordained  to  his  first  curacy  under 
the  Rev.  Henry  Ward.] 

I  am  a  day  behind  the  fair,  my  dear  Dawkins,  but 
you  must  charge  the  non-arrival  of  a  letter  yesterday  to 
the  account  of  the  Corporation  of  London.  For  I  was 
trotting  about  with  Ward  from  one  Alderman  to  another 

O 

for  the  purpose  of  "  soliciting  their  support "  with  the 
city  companies  "in  re  "  our  Church  restoration.  It  was 
amazing  fun  to  sit  by  and  watch  the  scene,  the  delicate 
advances  of  the  Church,  the  shy  reserve  of  the  city— 
Ward  craftily  shaking  the  oats  "  Christian  charity — 
accustomed  munificence — noble  liberality  " — Sir  John, 
or  Sir  Bob  looking  askance  at  the  end  of  the  halter  that 
peeped  out  and  holding  a  yard  off  with  "ifs"  and 
"  buts  "  and  "  possibles."  Considering  that  there  are 
no  finer  mendicants  than  the  clergy  of  our  Reformed 
Church,  it  is  no  slight  treat  for  a  lover  of  humour  to 
listen  to  their  invectives  against  the  begging  Friar  of 
the  pre-reform  period,  who  had  at  any  rate  the  honesty 
to  "  sing  for  his  supper  "  and  preach  a  merry  sermon 
from  the  portable  pulpit  he  carried  round,  as  the  Punch 
and  Judy  dramatists  carry  theirs  to  this  day,  before  he 
sent  the  hat  round.  While  we  "Evans"  [i.e.  Evan- 
gelicals] toady  Aldermen  for  a  couple  of  guineas,  the 
Pussycats  find  opulent  devotees  who  beg  to  be  allowed 
to  hang  golden  bells  round  their  feline  throats  before 
they  fall  down  and  mew  in  adoration  at  their  feet. 
The  English  of  which  is  that  a  City  merchant  is 
endowing  a  church,  building  schools,  and  forming 
a  Shoreditch  district  which  is  to  possess  Baird  as  its 
incumbent.  "  Ah,  fortunatos  Pussycatos ! "  I  am 
very  glad,  however,  of  the  choice.  For  Baird  is  real 
and  earnest  in  his  faith,  and  is  Romaniser  enough 
to  be  charitable  to  others.  He  and  I  understand 


50  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN        PART  i 

each  other  thoroughly,  and  he  has  already  "  bagged " 
me  to  help  him  at  his  new  church.  Of  course 
he  is  bitten  with  the  prevailing  epidemic  of  Anti- 
rationalism,  but  he  looks  upon  my  case  as  exceptional, 
and  like  Ward  would  allow  me  to  preach  essays 
and  reviews  if  I  chose.  Ward  believes  I  shall  settle 
down  into  a  "  steady  old  Evangelical."  Baird  believes, 
and  argues  out  his  belief,  that  I  shall  end  in  kissing  the 
toe  of  that  "  improper  person  "  who  sits  so  uncomfort- 
ably on  seven  hills, — and  I  enjoy  my  liberty. 


PART   II 

CLERICAL    CAREER 

THE  following  letters  belong  to  the  period  in  which  Green 
was  an  active  London  clergyman.  I  will  first  give  the 
dates  of  the  various  positions  which  he  held  during  his 
clerical  career.  He  was  ordained  deacon  at  Christmas 
1860,  and  priest  at  Christmas  1861,  on  both  occasions 
by  the  Bishop  of  London,  A.  C.  Tait,  who  became  a 
very  warm  personal  friend.  His  first  curacy  was  under 
the  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  incumbent  of  St.  Barnabas, 
King's  Square,  Goswell  Road.  In  the  spring  of  1863, 
at  the  request  of  Bishop  Tait,  he  took  charge  of  a  dere- 
lict parish  in  Hoxton.  His  health,  however,  soon  gave 
way  ;  and  a  year's  rest  was  ordered  which  he  was  un- 
able to  afford.  He  gave  up  Hoxton  in  the  autumn, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  year  took  a  curacy  under  the  Rev. 
Philip  Cell,  at  Netting  Hill.  In  April  1 864  he  accepted 
a  "  mission  curacy "  at  St.  Peter's,  Stepney ;  and  in 
November  1865  was  appointed,  by  Bishop  Tait,  to  the 
perpetual  curacy  of  St.  Philip's,  Stepney.  He  resigned 
this  at  Easter  1869.  Tait,  who  had  just  become  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  appointed  him,  at  the  same  time, 
to  the  librarianship  of  Lambeth,  a  purely  honorary 
office  ;  and  he  ceased  from  that  time  to  discharge  any 
active  clerical  duties. 

During  eight  years  (1861-68)  Green  had  worked  at 
different  tasks  with  an  energy  which  would  have  been 


52  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

remarkable  in  a  strong  man,  and  is  altogether  astonish- 
ing when  the  state  of  his  health  is  taken  into  account. 
The  references  in  his  letters  will  show  how  varied  were 
his  interests,  though  unfortunately  they  are  too  frag- 
mentary to  give  anything  like  a  complete  picture.  I 
will  bring  together  some  of  the  different  aspects  of  his 
energy,  and  I  must  leave  it  to  readers  to  understand 
that  the  various  occupations  which  I  mention  in  succes- 
sion were  carried  on  simultaneously. 

When  he  first  took  orders  his  friend  Stanley  desired 
him  to  accept  a  curacy  in  the  West  End,  where  he 
would  have  an  opportunity  of  showing  his  abilities  to  a 
cultivated  audience,  and  be  on  the  way  to  preferment. 
Green,  however,  desired  to  take  a  share  in  a  more 
arduous  sphere  of  clerical  work.  The  influence  of 
Maurice  and  the  Christian  Socialists  had  lately  drawn 
the  attention  of  many  young  men  to  the  importance  of 
bringing  Church  influence  to  bear  upon  the  great  social 
problem.  Green's  political  Liberalism  aroused  his 
sympathies  in  this  same  direction ;  and  he  resolved  to 
take  duty  in  the  East  End  of  London,  where  he  rightly 
perceived  that  there  would  be  ample  opportunity  for 
the  exertion  of  all  his  powers  in  the  warfare  against  vice 
and  barbarism. 

Green  not  only  took  the  keenest  interest  in  the  social 
duties  of  a  parish  priest,  but  showed  remarkable  aptitude 
for  their  discharge.  His  first  curacy  brought  one  new 
and  important  element  into  his  life.  He  was  for  the 
first  time  welcomed  into  a  domestic  circle  of  refined 
tastes.  For  Mrs.  Ward,  the  wife  of  his  incumbent,  he 
soon  conceived  the  warmest  affection,  and,  as  will 
be  seen,  felt  her  death  (July  2,  1863)  with  singular 
keenness.  A  letter  to  Mrs.  Creighton  (February  n, 
1871)  to  be  given  hereafter,  will  show  how  lasting 
was  the  impression  produced.  The  love  of  children 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  53 

was  always  one  of  Green's  strongest  feelings,  and  he 
showed  it  by  a  lasting  regard  for  Mrs.  Ward's  family. 
One  of  them,  Mr.  Humphry  Ward,  became  a  life-long 
friend,  and  has  kindly  communicated  some  recollections. 
"  My  mother,"  says  Mr.  Ward,  "  ever  genial,  sunny, 
and  cheerful,  and  supported  by  a  happy  and  extremely 
simple  religious  faith  against  the  difficulties  of  a  large 
family,  a  huge  parish,  and  narrow  means,  became 
like  an  elder  sister  to  him,  and  he  was  never  so  happy 
as  when  reading  a  new  volume  of  Tennyson  to  her,  or 
discussing  Mme.  Guyon,  or  (and  this  was  equally 
natural)  having  wild  romps  with  my  small  brothers  and 
sisters."  Green  took  a  lively  interest  in  the  studies  of 
Mr.  Ward,  then  at  Merchant  Taylor's  School.  He 
would  walk  round  the  "  dismal  garden  of  King's  Square, 
discoursing  to  his  young  friend  upon  the  school  studies." 
His  "  wide  knowledge  of  history  and  literature,  his  extra- 
ordinary instinct  for  style,  and  the  passionate  enthusiasm 
with  which  he  held  to  his  ideals  of  truth,  justice,  and 
sincerity  were  of  immense  importance  to  me."  The 
routine  studies  were  "  transformed  by  the  fiery  genius 
of  this  young  student,"  and  "  under  his  touch  things 
that  had  been  mere  names  became  full  of  meaning. 
Thucydides  took  his  place  in  universal  history  ;  the  life 
of  the  Roman  Forum  took  the  colours  of  reality,  and 
in  proportion  as  he  shook  down  the  edifice  of  Bibliolatry 
on  which  I  had  been  brought  up,  the  Bible  became 
interesting." 

Saint  Barnabas,  says  Mr.  Ward,  was  a  vast  square 
church,  set  down  in  the  midst  of  a  squalid  parish  of 
7000  people,  not  one  in  fifty  of  whom  ever  thought  of 
going  to  church  ;  there  was  no  parish  machinery,  and 
the  fabric  of  the  church  "  had  been  indescribably  dirty 
and  forlorn  on  my  father's  appointment  to  it  a  year 
before."  Green  was  encouraged  by  Mrs.  Ward's  sym- 


54  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

pathy  in  his  first  discharge  of  parochial  duties.  An 
interesting  account  of  his  activity  has  been  given  in  an 
article  by  Mr.  Philip  Lyttelton  Gell,  son  of  his  incum- 
bent at  Netting  Hill.1  "  Green,"  says  Mr.  Gell,  "  spent 
the  best  years  of  his  life  in  fighting  the  battle  of  religion 
and  civilisation  amidst  the  ever-teeming  social  chaos  of 
the  East  End."  He  was  admirably  qualified  to  exert 
personal  influence.  He  made  friends  with  the  poor 
individually  as  he  did  with  more  cultivated  persons. 
He  sympathised  with  their  troubles  and  planned  amuse- 
ments for  them,  getting  up  penny  readings  or  taking 
them  to  Rosherville  or  Epping  Forest.  A  lady  tells  me 
that  he  was  constantly  to  be  seen  in  the  back  streets, 
talking  to  his  parishioners,  and  generally  with  a  group 
of  poor  children  clustering  round  him.  One  anecdote  is 
significant ;  he  used  to  tell  how  he  had  found  a  row 
inhabited  by  a  specially  quiet  and  sober  set  of  people, 
and  often  took  a  cup  of  tea  with  them.  A  policeman 
afterwards  had  revealed  to  him  the  secret  of  their  good 
manners.  They  were  all  employed  as  coiners  and 
therefore  careful  to  give  no  occasion  for  any  intrusion 
of  the  authorities.  Personal  influences  could  only  reach 
the  surface,  beneath  which  lay  vast  masses  of  a  miserable 
and  criminalised  population. 

When  Green  was  transferred  to  Hoxton  in  1863, 
the  position  was  so  difficult  that  the  bishop  asked  him 
to  undertake  it  as  a  special  favour,  and  assured  him 
that,  should  he  fail,  it  would  not  be  from  any  fault 
of  his  own.  The  incumbent  had  been  suspended,  and 
the  church  was  in  such  bad  odour  that  a  shoemaker 
refused  to  send  boots  to  the  parsonage  till  he  had 
received  payment  in  advance.  Green  set  vigorously  to 
work.  He  started  a  restoration  of  the  church  ;  and 

1  Fortnightly  Review  for  May  1883.     See  also  the  article  by  Mr,  H.  R.  Haweis, 
in  the  Contemporary  Review  of  May  1883. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  55 

his  sermons  rapidly  increased  the  congregation.  He 
also  began  to  take  a  special  interest  in  the  schools. 
When  compelled  to  change,  he  took  the  curacy  at 
Netting  Hill  in  the  hope,  partly  realised,  that  the 
position  would  be  more  favourable  to  his  health.  He 
was  enabled  to  return  to  the  East  End,  and  again 
exposed  himself  to  an  excessive  strain. 

Soon  after  his  appointment  to  St.  Philip's,  a  special 
demand  was  made  upon  Green's  energy  by  the  outbreak 
of  cholera  in   1866.     A  panic  had   begun.     Many  of 
the  first  sufferers  naturally  died  in  the  hospitals  ;  their 
friends    thought    that    the    hospital   treatment   was    to 
blame,    and    refused   to    send  in   patients.      Ignorance 
and   alarm  made  it   difficult  to   obtain    treatment  for 
those  who  remained  in  their  own  lodgings,  or  to  carry 
out   precautionary   measures.     Some  who  should  have 
helped  deserted  their  posts,  and  it  was  difficult  to  get 
a  sufficient  supply  of  nurses.     Green  devoted  himself 
unsparingly  to  his  duties.     "  Within  an  hour  from  the 
first   seizure  in   his  parish,  Green  himself"   (says  Mr. 
Gell),  "  met  the  dying  patients  in  the  London  hospital, 
and    thenceforward,    while    the    plague  lasted,    Green, 
like  other  clergy  in  the  parishes  attacked,  worked  day 
and  night  amidst  the  panic-stricken  people,  as   officer 
of    health,    inspector    of   nuisances,   ambulance  super- 
intendent, as  well  as   spiritual  consoler  and  burier  of 
the    dead."       He    showed    no    alarm,    except    for    his 
friends.      Meeting  the  wife  of  a  neighbouring   clergy- 
man in  the  hospital,  he  expostulated  with  her  passion- 
ately, for  the   sake  of  her   children,   against  incurring 
the  risk.     He  appealed  to  Sir  Andrew  Clark,  who  was 
then  physician  at  the  hospital,  and  from  this  time  was 
a  warm  friend  of  Green.     Clark  decided  that  the  lady's 
influence  upon  the  nurses   was  so  important  that   she 
could  not  be  spared.     Green  himself,  as   Mr.   Haweis 


56  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

says,  laboured  energetically  and  successfully  in  soothing 
the  hospital  patients.  Haweis  mentions  another  curious 
fact.  Green  helped  to  secure  the  removal  of  the  dead 
from  the  houses  ;  and  his  best  helpers  were  "  the  lowest 
women  of  the  town."  It  was  no  uncommon  thing 
to  see  him  going  to  an  infected  house,  between  two 
such  outcasts  who  had  volunteered  to  help  him  in  an 
errand  of  mercy.  On  one  occasion  he  found  a  man 
dangerously  ill  in  an  upper  room.  Some  big  draymen 
in  the  street  refused  to  help.  Green  therefore  tried  to 
carry  the  man  downstairs.  His  slight  frame  was 
unequal  to  the  effort,  and  the  two  fell  from  the  top  to 
the  bottom  of  the  stairs  together.  The  man  who  was 
in  a  state  of  collapse  was  not  injured. 

The  cholera  passed  away  soon  ;  but  in  the  succeeding 
years  there  was  great  distress  in  the  East  End,  due 
partly  to  the  failure  of  Overend  and  Gurney,  while 
trade  disputes  were  leading  to  a  collapse  of  important 
industries.  A  lax  administration  of  the  poor  laws  was 
causing  an  ominous  increase  of  pauperism.  Green  was 
deeply  impressed  by  these  evils,  and  by  the  bad  effects 
of  indiscriminate  charity.  He  wrote  upon  the  subject 
in  the  Saturday  Review.  His  articles  show  close 
familiarity  with  the  facts  as  well  as  thorough  common 
sense,  and  a  clear  grasp  of  the  situation.  He  insisted 
upon  the  importance  of  a  firm  administration  of  the 
poor  laws,  a  steady  application  of  the  labour  test,  and 
a  limitation  of  almsgiving  to  exceptional  cases.  He 
was  appointed  an  ex-qfficio  guardian  by  the  Poor  Law 
Board  ;  and  he  helped  to  form  a  local  committee  in 
Stepney,  intended  to  remedy  the  evils  due  to  the  over- 
lapping of  many  charitable  agencies,  and  anticipating 
the  principles  soon  afterwards  accepted  by  the  Charity- 
Organisation  Society.  Edward  Denison,  whose  early 
death  cut  short  a  most  promising  career,  settled  in 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  57 

Stepney  in  1867  to  study  the  social  problems.  He 
made  Green's  acquaintance,  and  I  shall  give  one  or  two 
of  the  letters  which  Green  addressed  to  him  upon  their 
common  interests. 

Green  afterwards  reviewed  the  letters  of  Denison 
collected  by  Sir  Baldwyn  Leighton.1  A  passage 
from  this  review,  describing  their  first  interview, 
illustrates  Green's  position  at  the  time.  "  A  vicar's 
Monday  morning,"  he  says,  "  is  never  the  pleasantest 
of  awakenings,  but  the  Monday  morning  of  an 
East  End  vicar  brings  worries  that  far  eclipse  the 
mere  headache  and  dyspepsia  of  his  rural  brother. 
It  is  the  '  parish  morning.'  All  the  complicated 
machinery  of  a  great  ecclesiastical,  charitable,  and 
educational  organisation  has  got  to  be  wound  up 
afresh,  and  set  going  again  for  another  week.  The 
superintendent  of  the  Women's  Mission  is  waiting 
with  a  bundle  of  accounts,  complicated  as  only  ladies' 
accounts  can  be.  The  churchwarden  has  come  with 
a  face  full  of  gloom  to  consult  on  the  falling  off  in 
the  offertory.  The  scripture-reader  has  brought  his 
'  visiting  book '  to  be  inspected,  and  a  special  report 
of  the  character  of  a  doubtful  family  in  the  parish. 
The  organist  drops  in  to  report  something  wrong 
in  the  pedals.  There  is  a  letter  to  be  written  to  the 
Inspector  of  Nuisances  directing  his  attention  to 
certain  odoriferous  drains  in  Pig-and- Whistle  Alley. 
The  nurse  brings  her  sick-list,  and  her  little  bill  for 
the  sick-kitchen.  The  schoolmaster  wants  a  fresh 
pupil  teacher,  and  discusses  nervously  the  prospects 
of  his  scholars  in  the  coming  inspection.  There  is 
the  interest  on  the  penny  bank  to  be  calculated,  a 
squabble  in  the  choir  to  be  adjusted,  a  district  visitor 
to  be  upheld,  reports  to  be  drawn  up  for  the  Bishop's 

1  His  review  is  reprinted  as  "A  Brother  of  the  Poor,"  in  Stray  Studies. 


58  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Fund,  and  a  great  charitable  society,  the  curates' 
sick-list  to  be  inspected,  and  a  preacher  to  be  found 
for  the  next  church  festival."  To  complete  the 
picture,  it  must  be  noted  that  Green's  worries  were 
seriously  aggravated  by  money  anxieties.  He  had  no 
independent  means  ;  his  official  income  was  small,  and 
he  spent  nearly  the  whole  upon  his  parish.1  If  he  desired 
to  start  any  new  scheme,  he  had  to  provide  the  funds 
by  raising  subscriptions,  or  by  literary  works  of  which 
I  shall  speak  directly.  Meanwhile,  I  may  note  that 
little  remains  to  show  Green's  fitness  for  another 
clerical  function.  But  his  preaching  and  his  earnest 
and  reverent  reading  of  the  church  services  left  a 
permanent  impression  upon  many  hearers.  A  friend 
says  that  he  would  descend  from  the  pulpit  at  the  end 
of  the  service  and  give  the  blessing  so  impressively 
that  his  stature  seemed  to  dilate.  Mr.  Bryce  heard 
him  at  St.  Philip's,  and  he  says,  "  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  impression  made  on  me  by  the  impassioned 
sentences  that  rang  through  the  church,  from  the 
fiery  little  figure  in  the  pulpit  with  its  thin  face  and 
bright  black  eyes."  The  church  had  been  nearly 
empty  and,  before  long,  his  preaching  attracted  a 
congregation  of  about  800,  which  was  thought  to  be 
a  remarkable  achievement.  Many  of  his  friends  speak 
of  Green's  astonishing  readiness  as  a  public  speaker, 
and  his  power  of  riveting  the  attention  of  audiences, 
whether  at  an  archasological  association  or  at  a  meeting 
of  the  parish  vestry.  He  once  persuaded  a  meeting  of 
the  "  C.C.C."  to  change  its  opinion — a  very  rare  feat 
at  any  meeting — by  his  forcible  exposition  of  the  evils 
of  indiscriminate  charity.  In  the  pulpit,  as  was  natural, 

3  His  cheque-books  of  this  time  are  preserved,  and  nearly  all  the  items  are  for 
charitable  purposes — "  schools,"  "  wine  for  the  sick,"  and  so  forth.  Some  modest 
sums  are  set  down,  too,  for  household  expenses,  and  something  goes  to  the  book- 
sellers. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  59 

his  manner  was  more  restrained,  and  he  could  not 
give  full  play  to  his  vivacious  wit.  He  despised,  it 
is  said,  the  character  of  a  popular  preacher,  and  he 
found  himself  more  at  home,  as  he  notes,  with  East 
End  costermongers  than  with  the  respectable  in- 
habitants of  Notting  Hill,  who  expected  him  to  use 
their  conventional  formulas.  He  prepared  his  sermons 
carefully,  and  acquired  the  habit  of  thinking  them 
out  while  walking  in  the  streets.  The  only  sermon 
which  I  have  seen  was  preached  upon  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Ward.  It  is  not  only  expressive  of  a  singularly 
strong  emotion,  but  illustrates  the  literary  grace  of  all 
his  writing. 

He  endeavoured  in  other  ways  to  promote  the 
intellectual  culture  of  the  people.  He  started  a 
literary  society  in  his  parish.  After  his  death,  one  of 
the  members  produced  a  book  of  essays,  which  he 
had  preserved  as  a  treasure.  They  had  been  almost 
rewritten  by  Green  by  way  of  a  lesson  in  composition. 

The  activities  of  which  I  have  spoken,  multifarious 
as  they  were,  occupied  only  half  of  Green's  life.  His 
labours  in  the  East  End,  as  he  often  himself  remarked, 
had  an  important  bearing  upon  his  literary  work.  His 
sympathies  with  human  beings  were  strengthened  ;  and 
the  history  might  have  been  written  in  a  very  different 
tone  had  the  writer  passed  his  days  in  academical 
seclusion.  His  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  masses, 
and  his  conviction  that  due  importance  should  be 
given  to  their  social  condition,  determined  a  very 
important  peculiarity  of  the  work.  A  characteristic 
passage  at  the  opening  of  the  essay  upon  Denison 
shows  how  the  two  strains  of  thought  might  be 
blended.  After  speaking  of  the  "endless  rows  of 
monotonous  streets,"  he  says,  "There  is  poetry  enough 
in  East  London  ;  poetry  in  the  great  river  which 


60  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

washes  it  on  the  south,  in  the  fretted  tangle  of  cordage 
and  mast  that  peeps  over  the  roofs  of  Shadwell,  or  in 
the  great  hulls  moored  along  the  wharves  of  Wapping ; 
poetry  in  the  '  Forest '  that  fringes  it  to  the  east,  in  the 
few  glades  that  remain  of  Epping  and  Hainault — glades 
ringing  with  the  shouts  of  school-children  out  for  their 
holiday,  and  half-mad  with  delight  at  the  sight  of  a 
flower  or  a  butterfly  ;  poetry  of  the  present  in  the 
work  and  toil  of  these  acres  of  dull  bricks  and  mortar, 
where  everybody,  man,  woman,  and  child,  is  a  worker 
in  this  England  without  a  '  leisure  class ' ;  poetry  in 
the  thud  of  the  steam  engine  and  the  white  trail  of 
steam  from  the  tall  sugar  refinery,  in  the  blur-eyes  of 
the  Spitalfields  weaver,  or  the  hungering  faces  of  the 
group  of  labourers  clustered  from  morning  till  night 
round  the  gates  of  the  docks  and  watching  for  the 
wind  that  brings  the  ships  up  the  river  ;  poetry  in  its 
past,  in  strange  old-fashioned  squares,  in  quaint  gabled 
houses,  in  grey  village  churches  that  have  been  caught 
and  over-lapped  and  lost  as  it  were  in  the  great  human 
advance  that  has  carried  London  forward  from  White- 
chapel,  its  limit  in  the  age  of  the  Georges,  to  Stratford, 
its  bound  in  that  of  Victoria." 

He  proceeds  to  speak  of  Stepney  as  it  was  in  the 
days  when  Erasmus  came  here  to  enjoy  fresh  air  with 
Colet  in  the  country  house  belonging  to  the  Dean  of 
St.  Paul's.  The  poetry  embodied  in  every  human 
being  blends  with  the  poetry  which  revivifies  the  past 
for  the  historian.  Green  indeed  felt  keenly  the  weary 
monotony  of  the  wilderness  "  of  dull  bricks  and 
mortar."  He  would  sometimes  take  a  tiring  walk 
as  far  as  Mayfair  to  have  the  relief  of  seeing 
ranges  of  houses  with  at  least  a  broken  skyline.  It 
weighed  upon  his  spirits,  though  he  could  solace  him- 
self by  seeing  in  actual  London  a  continuation  of  the 


II 


CLERICAL  CAREER  61 


ancient  town,  and  he  devoted  a  large  part  of  his  time 
to  his  historical  studies.  He  spent  his  mornings  in  the 
library  of  the  British  Museum,  and  lived  with  ancient 
monks  as  well  as  with  modern  district  visitors.  He 
had  left  Oxford  with  the  intention  of  writing  lives 
of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  ;  a  plan  carried  out 
about  the  same  time  by  Dean  Hook.  A  letter  to 
Professor  Dawkins  will  explain  why  this  scheme  was 
abandoned,  and  was  by  degrees  superseded  in  favour 
of  a  history  of  the  Angevin  Kings  of  England.  He 
began  to  study  ancient  ecclesiastical  history,  and  spent 
some  time  upon  St.  Patrick,  till  he  felt  that  his  ignor- 
ance of  the  Irish  language  disqualified  him  for  the 
task.  Two  other  plans  occupied  him  for  a  time.  He 
had  proposed  to  write  a  history  of  Somerset,  in  colla- 
boration with  his  friend,  Professor  Dawkins.  This,  it 
appears,  was  to  go  back  to  the  inhabitants  of  Wookey 
Hole,  if  not  to  remoter  geological  periods.  It  would 
have  partly  anticipated  the  Victorian  county -history. 
The  task  would  have  been  beyond  the  strength  of  the 
two  young  men,  and  the  refusal  of  a  publisher  to  accept 
the  book,  fortunately,  as  they  soon  perceived,  put  a 
stop  to  it. 

With  Professor  Dawkins  he  was  also  concerned  in  a 
college  magazine  called  the  Druid.  The  first  number 
of  this  appeared  at  Easter  1862.  The  college  author- 
ities intimated  to  Professor  Dawkins,  as  ostensibly  the 
editor,  that  young  men  would,  in  their  opinion,  be 
more  fitly  occupied  in  learning  than  in  teaching.  The 
admonition  was  taken  as  a  challenge,  and  a  second 
number  appeared,  which  cost  the  undertakers  ,£15, 
and  was  naturally  the  last.  Green's  part  in  it  deserves 
notice.  The  Druid  opens  with  a  notice  of  Henry 
Vaughan,  the  "  Silurist,"  a  member  of  Jesus  ;  and  the 
opening  pages  contain  a  sketch  of  the  college  history. 


62  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

A  letter  signed  "  J.  R.  G. "  sets  forth  the  programme 
to  be  carried  out.  The  greatest  want  of  the  college  is 
a  "  want  of  traditions."  Its  members  should  investi- 
gate the  history  of  previous  Welsh  foundations  in 
Oxford,  and  proceed  to  the  history  of  its  great  men. 
Then  they  should  do  their  best  to  get  rid  of  the  false 
shame  with  which  Jesus  men  often  regarded  their 
country,  and  investigate  Welsh  history,  language,  and 
literature.  Finally,  they  should  inquire  what  the  pre- 
sent college  actually  did  for  the  benefit  of  the  Welsh 
nation.  He  does  not  say  explicitly,  though  he  obviously 
holds,  that  the  answer  to  his  query  would  not  have  been 
satisfactory.  Green  contributes  three  out  of  nine  articles 
to  the  second  number  of  the  Druid,  and  one  of  these 
upon  "  Oxford  Before  and  After  the  Conquest,"  repro- 
duced as  "  The  Early  History  of  Oxford  "  in  his  Stray 
Studies,  shows  how  vigorously  he  was  already  working 
up  to  his  favourite  subject.  The  Druid,  if  it  were  to 
aim  at  such  a  high  mark,  was  not  likely  to  be  satis- 
factorily kept  up  by  members  of  a  small  college. 

Another  piece  of  early  work  had  more  important 
consequences.  He  had  made  a  special  study  of  Dunstan, 
and  had  prepared  a  paper  which  was  read  before  the 
meeting  of  the  Somersetshire  Archaeological  Society  at 
Wellington  in  August  1862.  Freeman  was  present, 
and  prepared  to  give  "  a  fair  hearing "  to  the  young 
and  unknown  clergyman.  The  knowledge  and  literary 
power  displayed  in  the  paper  took  him  altogether  by 
surprise.  Suddenly  it  flashed  upon  him  that  the 
speaker  was  little  "  Johnnie  Green  "  of  whom  he  had 
taken  notice  at  Magdalen  School.  He  introduced 
himself  after  the  paper,  and  a  friendship  began,  which 
materially  affected  Green's  later  career. 

Green's  account  of  Dunstan,  as  Freeman  says,  showed 
that  his  powers  were  already  fully  developed.  It  was 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  63 

"  a  noble  defence  of  a  noble  and  slandered  man,"  and, 
moreover,  implied  a  careful  sifting  and  weighing  of  all 
the  available  evidence.  It  proved,  that  is,  what  some 
later  critics  failed  at  first  to  perceive,  that  Green  could 
investigate  the  original  sources  thoroughly  as  well  as 
make  brilliant  summaries  of  history.  Freeman  recog- 
nised in  Green  a  worthy  fellow -worker  in  his  own 
field.  He  had  recently  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Professor  Dawkins,  who  had  brought  Green  to  Well- 
ington, and  the  friendship  was  consolidated  by  this 
additional  tie.  Freeman  not  only  became  a  friend,  but 
took  a  natural  pride  in  his  brilliant  young  admirer. 
His  feeling  towards  Green  seems  to  have  partaken  of 
a  sense  of  intellectual  proprietorship.  He  made  it 
a  duty,  he  says,  from  that  time  "  to  blow  Green's 
trumpet"  upon  every  opportunity.  He  generously 
acknowledged,  too,  the  lights  which  he  had  himself 
received  from  his  friend.  "  I  myself,"  he  remarks, 
"  owe  the  deepest  obligations  to  Green's  interest  in 
municipal  history.  Green's  gift  of  catching  both  the 
leading  features  in  the  topography  and  in  the  history 
of  a  town  was  wonderful.  Whatever  I  have  tried  to 
do  in  that  way,  I  have  learnt  from  him."  Green,  on 
his  side,  could  blow  Freeman's  trumpet  very  effectively, 
and  fully  appreciated  the  importance  of  Freeman's  work 
in  raising  the  standard  of  English  historical  research. 
He  became  acquainted  with  other  workers  in  the  same 
cause  ;  especially  with  Dr.  Stubbs,  the  late  Bishop  of 
Oxford,  and  with  Mr.  Bryce  who  made  his  mark  about 
this  time  by  his  essay  on  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
(1864). 

Freeman  soon  showed  the  value  which  he  set  upon 
Green's  opinion  by  consulting  him  upon  points  of 
history  ;  and  they  came  to  exchange  a  good  deal  of 
frank  criticism.  This  rather  dangerous  practice  did 


64  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

not  interfere  with  their  mutual  regard  ;  though  the 
strong  contrast,  both  of  character  and  intellect  between 
the  two,  gave  rise  to  certain  difficulties.  Freeman,  as 
his  biographer  intimates,  was  a  little  annoyed  at  times 
by  what  he  considered  as  impulsive  and  imaginative 
escapades,  very  uncongenial  to  his  own  methodical 
habits.  He  used,  however,  to  regard  them  as  "Johnnie 
Green's  way,"  and  to  reflect  that  his  man  of  genius 
must  not  be  judged  by  the  standard  applicable  to  the 
ordinary  human  being.  On  the  other  hand,  Freeman's 
mode  of  criticising  Green's  writings  and  behaviour  could 
not  be  always  agreeable  to  a  singularly  sensitive  nature. 
Freeman,  whatever  his  other  merits,  was  certainly  not 
conspicuous  for  the  tact  which  disarms  even  sharp 
criticism  of  its  sting.  It  is,  however,  needless  to 
insist  upon  superficial  peculiarities  of  taste  and  temper, 
which  never  seriously  interfered  with  the  strongest 
personal  regard  and  most  cordial  appreciation  of 
intellectual  ability  on  both  sides. 

Stubbs  first  met  him  in  the  train  in  1863,  when  they 
were  both  on  their  way  to  stay  with  Freeman  for 
another  meeting  of  the  Somersetshire  Society.  He 
noticed  that  Green  had  in  his  hand  a  volume  of 
Renan  ;  and  resolved  to  put  a  stop  to  that  dangerous 
study.  He  therefore  borrowed  the  book  ;  and  when 
Green  asked  for  its  return,  it  had  been  safely  deposited, 
with  leaves  uncut,  in  a  waste-paper  basket.  Stubbs 
describes  his  own  part  in  this  simple-minded  manoeuvre 
in  his  lectures.1  Green  was  amused,  and  probably  able 
to  procure  another  copy.  In  spite  of  such  little  col- 
lisions they  remained,  as  Stubbs  says,  on  the  friendliest 
terms  for  twenty  years. 

Green  was  gradually  preparing  for  his  historical 
work  during  the  early  years  of  his  clerical  career. 

1  See  Stubbs's  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  Medieval  and  Modern  History. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  65 

He  was,  however,  interrupted  for  a  time  by  another 
occupation.  The  demands  upon  his  very  modest 
income  were  excessive  ;  he  was  as  he  says  often  on 
the  verge  of  bankruptcy  ;  and  he  was  forced  to  eke 
out  his  means  by  bringing  his  pen  to  market.  At 
this  time  Freeman  was  one  of  the  very  distinguished 
band  of  contributors,  whom  J.  D.  Cook  had  recruited 
for  the  Saturday  Review.  In  that  paper,  playfully 
described  as  the  "  Re  viler,"  he  blew  the  trumpet 
of  Dr.  Stubbs,  Dr.  Guest,  Mr.  Bryce,  and  Green  ; 
and  justified  the  alternative  tide  by  persistent  ex- 
posures of  Froude's  inaccuracy.  At  their  first  meet- 
ing Freeman  suggested  that  Green  should  write  in  the 
paper ;  but  it  was  not  till  later  that  he  introduced 
Green  to  Cook,  who  at  once  recognised  the  value  of  the 
new  writer.  Cook  indeed  was  anxious,  as  will  appear, 
to  give  more  work  than  Green  was  able  to  undertake. 
From  the  spring  of  1867  till  the  end  of  1872,  Green 
wrote  many  articles  ;  and  a  few  appeared  in  the  next 
two  years.  Green  had  a  singular  facility  in  turning 
out  such  work.  Mr.  Loftie  says  that  he  would  take 
great  pains  in  revising  or  rewriting  his  brilliant 
passages,  but  he  must  often  have  written  at  full 
speed.  He  told  a  friend  who  was  staying  with  him 
that  he  had  to  write  three  articles  in  thirty-six  hours. 
One  was  a  review  of  a  volume  by  Freeman,  a  second 
a  "  light  middle,"  while  a  third  dealt  with  the  history 
of  an  English  town.  He  had  got  them  all  into 
shape,  he  added,  during  his  walks  that  day  about 
London  streets.  He  finished  the  first  about  two  in 
the  morning,  while  talking  to  his  friend,  and  the  other 
two  were  done  the  next  day.  We  are  elsewhere  told 
that  Green  often  sat  down,  after  a  day  passed  in 
the  museum  and  in  parish  work,  and  finished  an 
article  between  12  and  2  A.M.  He  even  speaks  of 


66  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

writing  from  2  to  5.  The  practice  of  night  work 
is  seductive,  but  the  strain  upon  a  man,  already 
threatened  with  dangerous  disease,  must  have  been  ex- 
cessive. Green,  as  will  be  seen,  thought  that  this 
occupation,  recommended  by  financial  reasons,  was  not 
a  mere  waste  of  energy.  The  friend  who  describes 
the  composition  of  the  three  articles  defends  him 
from  the  charge  of  "journalism,"  against  which  he 
always  protested  himself.  By  "journalism "  is  to 
be  understood,  I  suppose,  writing  for  pay  upon 
matters  of  which  you  are  ignorant.  Most  of  Green's 
articles  are  unassailable  upon  this  ground.  Many  of 
them  are  serious  reviews  of  historical  work  by  a 
competent  critic ;  others  are  independent  historical 
essays  ;  and  others  again  are  valuable  discussions  of 
the  lessons  impressed  upon  him  by  the  great  problem 
of  East  End  pauperism.  His  articles,  says  Mr. 
Bryce,  were  "  among  the  best,  perhaps  the  very  best " 
which  were  then  appearing  in  the  paper.  Some,  in 
particular,  those  upon  the  history  of  towns  were 
"  masterpieces."  Green  collected  some  of  them  in 
1876  in  his  Stray  Studies  from  England  and  Italy. 
The  volume  also  includes  specimens  of  the  "  light 
middle,"  the  short  essay  which  intervened  between 
the  political  articles  and  the  reviews  of  books.  They 
reveal  a  fresh  side  of  Green's  singularly  versatile 
nature.  Retiring  to  his  study  from  the  worry  and 
strain  of  other  occupations,  he  relieved  himself  by 
throwing  off  hasty  sketches  of  the  curates  and  district 
visitors  with  whom  he  had  associated.  Though  per- 
fectly good  humoured,  and  doing  full  justice  to  the 
merits  of  the  persons  concerned,  the  articles  show 
also  a  very  keen  eye  for  the  comic  aspects  of  the 
human  species  described.  Other  articles,  which  at- 
tracted a  good  deal  of  notice  at  the  time,  show  that 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  67 

his  social  sympathies  were  not  confined  to  the  East 
End.  He  tells  Freeman  (in  March  1876)  that  he 
took  one  of  the  collected  articles  called  "  Children  by 
the  Sea "  to  be  his  best  bit  of  literary  work.  This 
little  sketch  shows  his  characteristic  love  of  children, 
and  its  artistic  skill  will,  I  think,  lead  many  readers  to 
agree  with  his  judgment.  According  to  Mr.  Loftie, 
he  expressed  a  similar  opinion  about  another  article 
called  the  "  Buttercup."  Buttercup  is,  it  seems,  a  name 
for  a  girl  just  emerging  from  the  schoolroom  into 
society.  Freeman  was  amusingly  scandalised  by  these 
performances.  Green,  he  said,  was  in  his  place  when 
speaking  of  history  or  of  East  End  pauperism  ;  but 
he  had  no  right  to  discourse  of  young  ladies  and 
Guardsmen,  and  the  ethics  of  flirtation.  Green's  ex- 
perience in  this  sphere  must,  of  course,  have  been 
limited ;  but  it  is  plain  that  if  his  opportunities  were 
not  great,  his  power  of  using  them  was  remarkable. 
All  his  friends  speak  of  the  singular  brilliancy  of  his 
conversation,  and  attribute  it  partly  to  the  vivacity 
and  alertness  of  his  intellect,  and  the  readiness  with 
which  mere  statements  of  fact  grouped  themselves  in 
his  mind  into. vivid  pictures.  But  it  also  implied  the 
quick  sympathy  of  an  exquisitely  sensitive  nature.  If 
he  could  appreciate  Freeman's  historical  dissertations, 
he  could  enjoy  the  charm  of  naive  simplicity  in 
women  and  children.  The  claims  of  women  to  equality 
in  politics  and  education  were  then  provoking  a  good 
deal  of  satire,  some  of  it  harsh  enough.  Green's 
articles  upon  contemporary  feminine  types  show  his 
sense  of  the  comic  side,  united  with  a  genuine 
sympathy  for  the  feminine  enthusiast  who  might  be 
misdirected  by  ignorance.  Green  had  in  fact  oppor- 
tunities of  observing  beyond  the  region  of  district 
visitors.  He  was  especially  welcome  in  the  family  of 


68  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

\ 

Mr.  von  Glehn,  a  German  gentleman,  who  lived  at 
Peak  Hill,  Sydenham.  His  house  was  the  meeting- 
place  of  many  men  of  literary  and  artistic  distinction. 
Among  them  were  Sir  George  Grove,  Mr.  Holman 
Hunt,  and  Emmanuel  Deutsch,  who  sprang  into  fame 
by  his  article  upon  the  Talmud  in  1867.  Green  also 
won  the  lasting  friendship  of  Mr.  von  Glehn's  daughters, 
who  were  then  growing  up  to  womanhood.  One  of 
them  became  the  wife  of  Dr.  Creighton,  the  late  Bishop 
of  London.  Some  letters  to  her  and  to  her  sister 
Miss  (Olga)  von  Glehn  will  show  the  pleasant  relations 
which  existed  between  him  and  the  von  Glehns. 

Green's  Saturday  Review  articles,  as  Mr.  Cell  con- 
jectures, implied  a  kind  of  feverish  reaction  from  the 
strain  of  his  many  occupations.  In  any  case,  parish 
work,  historical  research,  and  journalism  all  carried  on 
together  were  too  much  for  a  constitution  which  had 
already  shown  serious  symptoms  of  weakness.  It  is 
surprising  that  his  nervous  energy  should  have  carried 
him  on  so  long ;  and  not  strange  that  he  should 
have  retired  with  broken  health,  and  with  spirits  often 
depressed.  At  times  he  complained  that  his  work 
had  been  inevitably  a  failure.  The  Church  could  not 
discharge  its  proper  function  of  civilising  the  masses. 
The  parson,  he  said,  cannot  get  into  really  close  con- 
tact with  the  poor.  "  Their  life  is  not  his  life,  nor 
their  ways  his  ways."  His  isolation  from  the  most 
numerous  and  popular  church  parties,  and  his  growing 
dissatisfaction  with  the  orthodox  creed  made  him  feel 
his  difficulties  too  more  keenly,  while  the  state  of  his 
health  gave  an  important  reason  for  retirement.  When 
relieved  from  the  strain,  his  spirits  revived ;  and  he 
resolved  to  concentrate  his  strength  upon  the  historical 
work  for  which  his  powers  were  most  thoroughly 
adapted. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  69 

Although  Green  was  a  born  historian,  without  special 
predilection  for  abstract  speculation,  he  had  strong  con- 
victions upon  religious  questions  of  which  something 
must  be  said.  His  health  gave  a  more  than  sufficient 
reason  for  his  abandonment  of  an  active  clerical  career. 
It  is  also  true,  as  the  letters  will  show,  that  the  position 
was  becoming  untenable  upon  other  grounds.  The 
Newman  influence  at  Oxford  had  passed  away,  and, 
during  his  university  career,  he  was  more  or  less  attracted 
by  the  Evangelicals.  His  first  curacy  was  under  an 
incumbent  of  that  way  of  thinking.  It  seems,  however, 
that  the  Evangelicism  was  more  superficial  than  the 
previous  Anglicanism.  He  was  at  any  rate  on  friendly 
terms  and,  up  to  a  certain  point,  in  sympathy  with 
members  of  the  "  Broad  Church "  party,  of  which  his 
friend,  Stanley  was  a  leading  member.  His  liberalism 
naturally  extended  from  politics  to  theology,  and  in 
the  various  controversies  of  the  period,  arising  from  the 
publication  of  Essays  and  Reviews,  and  the  writings  of 
Colenso  and  others,  he  was  emphatically  on  the  side  of 
the  rationalising  party.  The  letter  upon  Huxley's  con- 
test with  Wilberforce  shows  that  he  already  sympathised 
with  science  as  against  theological  dogmatists.  Another 
letter  written  to  Professor  Dawkins  (in  April  1862) 
shows  that  at  one  time  it  occurred  to  him  to  contri- 
bute to  the  voluminous  literature  upon  the  relations  of 
Christianity  to  science.  He  is  a  sincere  believer  in 
Christianity,  but  holds  that  where  theological  and  scien- 
tific ideas  conflict,  the  theological  will  have  to  give 
way. 

This  scheme  for  an  exposition  of  his  views  apparently 
represents  a  momentary  impulse.  Green's  power  was 
not  to  be  shown  in  such  controversies.  Meanwhile, 
however,  he  felt  painfully  that  he  was  cut  off  from 
many  of  his  fellows.  "  A  young  Liberal  clergyman." 


yo  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

he  writes  in  1863,  "has  to  pass,  above  all,  in  this  part 
of  town  and  in  the  country,  through  the  fire  and  water 
of  utter  isolation.  Highs  and  Lows  have  their  gather- 
ings, their  conferences  ;  know  one  another,  comfort  one 
another,  strengthen  one  another.  But  the  Liberal  must 
eat  the  bread  of  solitude  !  He  has  no  gathering,  no 
Margaret  Street,  no  Exeter  Hall.  There  may  be,  must 
be,  other  heretics  in  the  world,  but  he  does  not  know 
them,  and  he  has  no  means  of  knowing  them."  He 
proceeds  to  suggest  some  Association  of  the  Liberals 
which  might  issue  manifestoes,  and  perhaps  have  a  re- 
gular organ  in  the  press.  Green  had  a  few  like-minded 
friends,  of  whom  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke  and  Mr.  H. 
R.  Haweis  were  at  this  time  the  most  intimate.  They 
met  occasionally  at  the  "  C.  C.  C.,"  or  Curates'  Clerical 
Club,  intended  to  promote  a  free  discussion  of  Church 
questions.  Maurice,  Stanley,  and  others  occasionally 
looked  in  at  these  meetings.  They  gradually  drooped, 
however,  and  nothing  came  of  Green's  proposed  Associa- 
tion. 

Green's  religious  sentiment  was  deep  and  permanent. 
The  spiritual  life  of  the  mystics,  the  "  religion  of  the 
heart,"  which  subordinates  dogmas  and  historical  matter 
of  fact  to  the  emotions,  was  entirely  congenial  to  him. 
His  friend,  Mrs.  Ward,  had,  as  we  have  seen,  found 
solace  under  many  anxieties  in  the  quietism  of  Mme. 
Guyon.  A  volume  of  the  letters  would  lie  by  her  side 
with  a  heap  of  darning.  Green  fully  sympathised  with 
her  religious  attitude,  and  spoke  of  it  to  the  end  with 
affectionate  reverence.  But  his  singularly  keen  intellect 
and  ardent  interest  in  historical  and  scientific  inquiries 
made  him  accept  the  fundamental  principle  of  rationalism. 
The  results  of  free  and  full  inquiry  must  be  accepted 
without  reserve  or  compromise.  He  was  for  a  time 
attracted  by  the  personal  charm  of  F.  D.  Maurice,  whose 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  71 

interest  in  the  great  social  questions  would  supply 
another  reason  for  sympathy.  But  Maurice's  peculiar 
method  of  combining  a  mystical  tendency  with  an 
acceptance  of  the  orthodox  creeds  and  history  could 
not  be  satisfactory  to  a  clear-headed  thinker.  It  was 
impossible  for  Green  to  hold  with  Maurice  that  the 
framers  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  had  somehow  pre- 
cisely expressed  the  ultimate  truths  of  religion.  He 
knew  the  origin  of  that  document  too  well.  Nor 
could  he  continue  to  hold  with  "  Broad  Church- 
men" that  it  was  right  at  once  to  admit  that  the 
formularies  represented  obsolete  dogmas  and  exploded 
history,  and  yet  to  accept  them  by  help  of  some  uncon- 
scious equivocation.  He  was  keenly  alive  to  the  danger 
of  being  tempted  by  his  position  into  insincerity.  His 
genuine  affection  for  the  Church,  as  well  as  his  main 
material  interests,  might  betray  him  in  that  direction. 
He  resolved  that,  if  he  should  be  unable  at  any  time 
to  use  the  words  of  the  Litany,  "  Christ,  have  mercy 
upon  us,"  with  perfect  sincerity,  he  would  abandon  the 
clerical  character.  When  the  time  came  he  acted  upon 
his  resolution.  He  was  glad,  however,  that  the  state 
of  his  health,  which  gave  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  step, 
made  it  unnecessary  to  set  forth  the  other  ground. 
Indeed,  he  had  some  thought,  even  after  his  resignation, 
of  undertaking  clerical  duties,  though  it  soon  became 
clear  that  this  would  be  impossible.  He  had  at  all 
times  a  horror  of  saying  anything  which  would  shock 
the  feelings  and  disturb  the  faith  of  simple  believers. 
He  not  only  respected  their  sensibilities,  but  with  his 
singularly  quick  powers  of  sympathy  could  show  that  he 
shared  their  emotions.  He  never  tended,  therefore,  to 
materialism,  or  identified  the  religious  principle  with 
the  obsolete  dogmas  historically  associated  with  it.  He 
admitted  the  possibility  that  for  some  persons  the 


72  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

spiritual  life  might  cast  off  the  accretions,  and  be  as 
vigorous  as  ever.  I  need  not  speak  of  the  difficulties 
of  such  a  position.  They  were  fully  felt  by  Green,  and 
he  did  not  purpose  to  offer  any  new  solution. 


To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

March  14,  1 86 1. 

[Mark  Anthony  Lower  (1813-1876)  was  secretary 
to  the  Sussex  Archaeological  Society,  and  published 
many  antiquarian  works.  Gideon  Algernon  Mantell 
(1790-1852),  a  well-known  geologist,  lived  at  Lewes 
till  1839.  See  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.~] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — If  I  were  not  your  debtor  already 
I  should  owe  you  a  letter  now  to  thank  you  for 
your  kind  invitation  to  my  brother.  On  arrival  at 
Lewes  I  was  welcomed  by  my  two  cousins,  young  girls, 
full  of  fun  and  talk,  with  whom  I  talked  fun  until 
eleven.  I  fancy  they  got  a  little  tired  at  last  of  the 
outrageous  rubbish  I  poured  out,  though  they  could 
not  help  laughing  on  ;  but  I  had  resolved  not  to  end 
till  I  felt  tired  enough  to  be  sure  of  falling  asleep 
the  moment  I  jumped  into  bed.  In  the  service  next 
morning  I  omitted  the  Psalms  bodily,  and  preached 
extempore — both  of  which  proceedings  electrified  my 
cousins'  congregation.  The  former,  however,  intro- 
duced me  to  a  Mr.  Lower,  the  genius  and  antiquarian 
of  the  place,  who  has  a  penchant  for  liturgical  reform, 
and  fancied  my  omission  to  have  been  intentional. 
Though  disappointed  on  this  point  by  my  candid 
confession  of  forgetfulness,  he  conveyed  me  the  next 
morning  over  the  old  castle,  and  from  the  top  of  the 
keep  pointed  out  the  battlefield  on  the  downs.  A 
gleam  of  sunlight  lit  up  the  edge  of  the  Wealden, 
and  brought  back  the  thought  of  you.  Lower  had 
known  Mantell,  who  resided  at  Lewes,  and  had  a  little 
smattering  of  geology  himself.  Our  conversation 
turned  on  the  "  Celt "  question,  and  as  he  was  sceptical 


II  eUiKieAL.   UAKHHK  73 

I  promised  him  your  notes  on  the  discovery  in  Wookey, 
a  promise  which  I  hope  you  will  perform  for  your 
sponsor's  credit.  A  kind  note  from  Stanley  offering 
me  a  curacy,  welcomed  me  home.  I  was  glad  to  find 
Mrs.  Ward  returned  ;  her  womanly  tact  discovered  that 
all  was  not  well,  and  without  inquiry  she  petted  me  into 
good  spirits.  I  spent  the  bulk  of  yesterday  pounding 
at  Dunstan  in  the  British  Museum.  I  shall  begin 
my  Hist.  Somerset  there  to-day.  I  have  routed  up 
Cuthbert,  and  am  throwing  him  into  a  paper  for  some 
magazine.  My  Oxford  papers  I  intend  now  completing, 
the  work  will  amuse  me,  and  will  pay  its  expenses. 
What  a  grand  friend  Work  is  ! 

By -the -bye  can  you  tell  me  of  a  good  map  of 
Somerset,  of  less  size  than  our  unwieldy  Ordnance 
Gentleman,  yet  minute  enough  for  my  purposes  ?  The 
country  below  Lewes,  once  a  seamarsh,  now  flat 
meadow -land  intersected  with  dykes,  brought  back 
Glastonbury,  and  to  complete  the  resemblance  there 
are  the  same  rounded  hillocks  with  endings  in  "  eye  " 
which  point  to  a  time  when  they  stood  like  Godneye, 
isolated  spots  amid  the  waters.  I  saw  Rolleston  and 
Daubeny  nominated  as  your  examiners  for  the  Scholar- 
ship. I  am  glad  you  will  thus  be  brought  across  the 
latter.  His  wide  acquaintance  with  Scientific  "  Swells  " 
would  enable  him  to  be  of  most  essential  service  to 
you,  if  he  chose.  Although  there  is  little  doubt  of  the 
matter,  it  will  be  a  "  white  day  "  for  me  when  I  see 
you  gazetted  as  Scholar.  It  will  be  the  "  beginning  of 
the  end."  I  can  fancy  no  happier  lot  than  a  quiet 
little  parsonage,  with  income  to  let  me  scribble  as  I 
please,  and  offer  a  breath  of  rural  air  to  you  or  Dobbs 
when  you  could  spare  a  moment  from  the  rush  of 
science  or  politics.  If  you  will  promise  this  I  will 
remain  Bachelor  to  the  end  of  my  days. 

You  will  not,  I  am  sure,  forget  how  pleasant  an 
arrival  the  postman's  is  now.  Good-bye,  my  dear 
Dawkins. — Believe  me  ever,  your  sincere  friend, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


74  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 


1861. 

next 


A   V. 

[The  "Dunstan  "  is,  I  presume,  the  paper  read 
year  at  Wellington.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — A  note  from  my  brother  this 
morning  reminds  me  of  my  delay  in  forwarding  you 
the  "mem.  de  Colle  Mendipsiense."  A  glance  at 
your  paper  of  instructions  makes  me  despair.  However 
I  will  do  my  best  at  the  British  Museum  to-day— 
as  soon  as  a  refractory  infant,  who  insists  on  being 
christened  at  12.30,  will  give  me  leave  of  absence. 

I  wish  you  a  very  pleasant  excursion  through  next 
week.  If  the  weather  in  Somerset  at  all  approaches 
"Jovem  Middlesaxonicum,"  you  will  exhibit  very 
strong  traces  of  Diluvial  action  on  your  return.  I 
can't  of  course  guess  at  your  plan  of  operations, 
whether  you  will  merely  make  a  rush  along  the  range 
(in  which  case  I  don't  care  a  rush  for  your  pro- 
ceedings, and  desire  to  hear  nothing  more  of  them), 
or  whether  you  will  examine  the  cave — open  a  Barrow, 
etc.,  etc.  Barrows,  I  for  myself  think  solemn  humbugs 
— pretending  to  an  antiquity  which  really  reaches  no 
farther  back  than  the  later  Roman  Empire.  But  the 
Cave,  and  its  Celts,  if  rightly  worked,  might  really 
throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  field  which  science  will 
have  to  delve  in  for  the  next  half  century,  the  period 
of  Man's  origines.  A  cool  semi-sceptical  head  like 
Howard's  would  be  invaluable  in  such  an  investigation. 
Accuracy  in  noting  all  the  circumstances  beyond  reach 
of  cavil  would  be  of  course  indispensable.  I  don't 
suppose  that  word  of  mine  would  influence  your 
arranged  plans,  but  interesting  as  "  the  anticlinal  axis 
of  Old  Red,"  "  the  flexures  and  dips  "  of  the  Mendip 
range  may  be,  Man  and  Man's  History  to  my  mind  is 
worth  them  all.  Nihil  geologic  um  a  me  alienuum  •puto^ 
but  still  Trilobites  and  Echini  are  only  Kingcrabs  and 
Starfishes,  while  Man  is  Man. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  75 

I  spent  yestreen  at  the  Crystal  Palace  with  the  Lady 
(have  I  told  you  of  her  ?)  who  denied  the  existence  of 
the  various  Hawkins-cum-Owens  animals  which  adorn 
its  grounds,  and  assured  me  that  Dr.  Buckland,  on 
whom  she  charged  the  paternity  of  such  naughty 
delusions,  died  of  Insanity  in  consequence.  I  thanked 
her  for  the  information,  as  it  corrected  the  general 
impression  that  his  death  was  caused  by  a  decayed 
bone  at  the  base  of  his  head,  but  ventured  to  inquire 
her  grounds  for  denying  the  existence  of  these  creatures, 
and  even  the  possibility  of  their  existence.  "  My  dear 
Mr.  Green,  think  how  ugly  they  were."  I  bowed, 
and  owned  that  this  convincing  argument  had  not 
struck  me. 

"Dunstan  "  is  finished.  "  Fine,  plucky  little  chap," 
shall  be  his  epitaph.  His  diminutive  size  makes  me 
sympathetic  with  him.  I  don't  care  a  straw  for  heroes 
of  six  feet.  This  is  the  great  blot  in  Columba's 
character — whose  hagiology  I  am  exploring  now.  He 
is  a  magnificent  fellow — but  too  tall  by  a  foot — but 
then  he  could  get  into  a  sublime  rage  !  That's  what 
I  like  in  these  older  S.  S.  The  devotees  of  the 
later  hagiology  could  fast  and  weep  and  whimper,  but 
they  could  not  get  into  one  of  S.  Columba's  grand 
wrath-explosions.  Puir  deils  !  T.  Owen  writes  most 
happily.  He  has  fought  for  the  Truth,  and  the 
Truth  has  made  him  free  from  the  petty  cares  and 
troubles  of  Jives  like  ours.  Nevertheless  we  have  our 
work  to  do, — Truth  in  History — Truth  in  Geology. 
Each  is  but  a  part  of  that  great  circle  of  the  Truth  of 
God.  May  He  bless  and  keep  you  ever. — Yours  in  all 
friendship,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  M.  M. 

April  1 86 1. 

In  the  country  there  is  no  excuse  for  remissness  in  re 
literaria^ — it  is  the  only  charm  against  the  devil. 
Excuse  there  might  be  for  me, — breakfasting  at  8  and 
snatching  half  an  hour  of  Stanley's  book  over  my  bread 


76  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  butter, — then  hurrying  from  morning  prayer  at  St. 
Matthew's  to  open  the  school  and  confer  with  my  vicar  ; 
letter  and  lecture-writing,  visiting  and  the  etceteras  of 
the  day  till   12  ;  then,  after  luncheon,  a  walk  to  the 
British  Museum  and  grind  there  till  4.30  ;  dinner  and 
a  trot  home  ;  tea  at  the  parsonage  ;  a  chat  with  Mrs. 
W.  ;    a  romp  with  the   children  till  the  parish  again 
claims  me  from  7  to  9  for  lectures,  Bible  classes,  music 
do.,  confirmation  do.,  committee  meetings,  and  the  like. 
A   good   two   hours'  reading   or  sermon-writing  sends 
me   to  bed   at    12.     But   you  idle   bucolic,   what  are 
you  doing  ?     Frittering  yourself  away,  I  fear,  on  little 
things,  little  social  successes,  little  parsonic  victories,  little 
industries,  little    idlenesses.      This   is  worse   than  our 
waste  of  those  precious  years  at  Oxford.     Brace  yourself, 
my  dear   M.,   to  better  things,   worthier  things  than 
these.     Look  at  that  little  fellow  Dawkins,  God  bless 
him  !  warmer  heart  and  cooler  head  never  balanced  one 
another  than  in  him, — but  look  at  what  he  has  done  by 
sheer  steady  work,  and  blush  !     You  used  to  laugh  at 
my  opus  magnum, — but  it  was  just  what  we  both  needed, 
an  end  to  which  to  work  and  a  big  end.     It  is  looking 
up  now.     Materials  are  coming  together.     The  saints 
are  huddling  in  the  pages  of  my  notebook,  expecting  a 
resurrection  in  octavo.     Only  my  Somerset  stops  the 
way,  and  that  will  be  launched  in  a  year,  putting,  I  hope, 
a  cool  hundred  or  two  in  D.'s  pocket  and  mine.     D. 
declares  I  first  woke  him  to  the  consciousness  of  what 
was  in  him.     I   should  like  to  wake  you  too.     One 
thing   you  could   do   and  well.      Select  and  translate 
some  of  that  immense  music  of  Welsh  songs  which 
you  are  so  fond  of.     People  are  beginning  to  wake 
to   the  value  of  national  poetry.      Your   country  has 
stores  of  sacred  hymns.     Select  and  translate  as  Miss 
Winkworth    has  translated   Luther,   and   in  her   Lyra 
Germanica.      Publish  your   Lyra   Celtica.      Don't  die 
down   without    a  struggle   into   a   rustic    celebrity, — a 
Welsh  parson.     You  are  one  of  my  set,  and  my  set 
must  be  more  than  that. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  77 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

LONDON,  April  1 6,  1 86 1. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — The  mistake  about  Ferguson  is — 
I   still  persist   in   thinking   your  own.      Ferguson   has 
published,   I   believe,   a   big    book   and    a  little    book. 
However,  your  choice  is  right,  and  I  expect  to  learn 
much  on  Byzantine  architecture  when  I  see  you  next. 
Your  letter  came  at  the  very  nick  of  time  ;  for  your 
quitting  me  induced  my  first  fit  of  depression  since  my 
curate  life  commenced, — and  of  course  troubles  were 
not  slow  to  flock  in.     I  lent,  in  my  unsuspicious  fashion, 
the  Quarterly  to  Mrs.  Ward,  and  when  I  came  to  chat 
over  it  found  them  frantically  exultant  in  its  smash  of 
Essays  and  Reviews.     I  said  truly  enough  that  the  only 
article  I  cared  about  was  one  on  "  Dogs," — but  I  was 
dragged  into  the  discussion,  and  then  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  speak  frankly  and  declare  the  article  "  un- 
fair," and  the  bosh  by  no  means  so  black  as  it  was 
painted.     The  Vicar  preached  last  Sunday  on  "  Modern 
Infidelity."     At  supper  I  was  asked  if  I  knew  anything 
of  that  atheist  Pattison,  whose  election  to  Lincoln  was 
the  theme  of  conversation.     "  No, — I  knew  nothing  of 
such  a  person."     "  Well,  that  infidel  Pattison," — so  I 
had  to  look  straight  at  Ward  and  reply  that  from  what 
I    had    read    of  Pattison's    I    believed    the    charge  of 
infidelity  to  be  wholly  without  foundation.     I  think  it 
very  creditable  to  Ward  that  he  made  no  remark,  and 
is  as  cordial  as  ever,  or  even  more  so.     Don't  think  I 
am  growing  controversial.     If  you  knew  my  horror  at 
controversy,  you  would  appreciate  the  pain  I  feel  at  such 
an  approach  to  it  as  I  have  already  made.     But  I  can 
see  the  storm  gathering  against  Neologians  as  it  gathered 
of  old  against  Puseyism,  and  I  know  well  if  it  breaks 
out  as  it  did  then  I  must  submit  to  be  misunderstood 
and  rejected  by  both  sides.     "  Oh,  pray  for  the  peace  of 
Jerusalem."       Don't    think    me    superstitious   for    the 
intense  joy  with  which  I   read   the  words  yesterday, 


78  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

"  They  shall  prosper  that  love  Thee."  Or  those  glori- 
ous words  in  the  Psalms  of  to-day.  "  Behold,  how 
good  and  joyful  a  thing  it  is,  brethren,  to  dwell  to- 
gether in  unity."  This  is  most  on  my  mind, — so 
pardon  my  bothering  you  with  it.  To  turn  to  other 
matters.  All  the  "  choral "  opposition  has  vanished. 
The  young  men  have  behaved  well  and  honestly,  so  I 
am  on  the  point  of  establishing,  with  great  hope  of 
success,  a  "  Young  Men's  Association,"  with  a  room 
open  every  night  for  reading  papers  and  periodicals, 
magazines  and  books  ;  playing  chess,  draughts,  back- 
gammon ;  a  nucleus  on  which  we  can  group  lectures 
and  classes  for  various  kinds  of  instruction,  choral  and 
otherwise.  You  must  not  forget  to  send  me  your 
Athens  um,  I  will  see  that  it  is  not  injured,  and  to  ask 
Dobbs  and  others  who  may  chance  to  "take  in" 
periodicals  etc.,  to  give  us  a  temporary  reversion  of  them. 
In  a  short  time,  when  our  bark  is  fully  launched,  I  hope 
to  get  on  without  these  swaddling  clothes. 

I  shall  not  be  able  to  call  on  the  Boyds  or  on  any  one 
else  for  the  whole  of  this  week,  as  my  whole  morning 
and  afternoon  are  occupied  in  the  vestry  and  parish, 
dispensing  relief  to  the  poor,  so  that  I  think  I  will  wait 
till  you  visit  London  again.  I  won't  enter  on  Jesus 
topics,  as  they  are  totally  without  interest  to  either  of  us  ; 
but  I  note  in  your  letter  an  ominous  silence  in  re  X. 
Don't  let  his  morbid  ill-humour  prevent  your  inter- 
course, if  he  is  up  this  term.  He  is  the  most  difficult 
fellow  to  get  on  with  I  have  ever  come  across, — but 
much  even  of  this  difficulty  sprung  from  his  intense 
love  of  truth  and  fairness,  and  this  is  so  rare  amongst 
the  "  Jesus  fry  "  that  one  is  bound  not  to  let  a  ridicu- 
lous irritability,  arising  not  from  character,  but  from 
ill-health,  stand  in  the  way  of  one's  appreciation  of  it. 
If  he  is  up,  will  you  put  down  to  my  bill  at  Parker's 
Maurice  on  the  Gospel  of  S.  John>  and  give  it  to  him 
from  me.  He  promised  to  read  it,  and  I  feel  it  will  do 
him  good  if  he  reads  it  with  a  sneer.  I  should  like, 
above  all  things,  to  run  down  to  Oxford,  but  how  to 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  79 

manage  it  I  see  not.     However,  I  don't  yet  despair. — 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Dax,  yours  most  sincerely, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
April  1 86 1. 

DEAR,  DEAR  OLD  DAX — I  hope  so  soon  to  be  with 
you  that  were  it  not  for  the  selfish  pleasure  I  take  in 
a  chat  with  you,  I  need  hardly  be  writing  now.  I 
intend  coming  down  on  Monday  morning  for  a  week's 
stay  in  Oxford.  Don't  pray  call  me  idle  for  so  long 
a  holiday.  It  all  comes  of  that  tempter  the  British 
Museum  Library.  Close  work  there,  and  no  exercise 
have — with  a  few  cares  and  troubles  which  you  need 
not  be  reminded  of — entirely  bowled  me  over.  A 
cold  has  completed  my  discomfiture.  I  feel  that  it  is 
taxing  your  kindness  not  a  little  to  ask  you  to  enter- 
tain a  broken-down  curate  with  a  cold  and  headache 
hanging  about  him,  for  a  week.  But  it  will  be  a  good 
test  of  your  capacity  for  either  of  the  two  professions 
between  whose  respective  charms  you  are  hesitating. 

I  defer  till  our  interview  all  talk  about  Somerset, 
your  travels — our  book — or  the  "  res  lonesii  Ecclesiae  " 
which  I  have  not  forgotten.  We  can  then  chat  more 
at  large  over  your  choice  of  a  profession.  You  know 
my  wishes  already.  But  don't  vex  yourself  about  the 
future.  ...  As  to  what  is  to  become  of  you  in  the 
future,  you  need  fash  yourself  very  little.  Even  in 
the  lowest  sense,  work  and  head  pay  in  the  world. 
In  a  higher  sense  we  can  rest  very  quietly,  not  idly, 
till  the  clouds  are  cleared  away  for  us.  It  is  just  the 
restlessness  about  our  future,  this  want  of  faith,  to 
speak  plainly,  that  makes  our  way  seem  so  hard  in 
life.  Do  you  remember  how  anxiously  I  looked 
forward  to  the  concomitants  of  my  clerical  life,  and 
even  did  not  know  all  my  apprehensions  at  the  chance 
of  meeting  a  "hard"  vicar — working  in  fetters,  and 
the  like.  Well,  look  how  happy  I  am  here — over- 


8o  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

petted,  I  daresay,  but  revelling  in  this  home  sunshine. 
Would  it  not  have  been  wiser  for  me  to  have  done 
my  work  and  left  the  future  to  a  wisdom  higher  than 
mine  ? 

Pardon  my  little  sermon,  dear  Dax,  it  is  preached 
rather  to  myself  than  to  you.  It  is  really  preached 
at  my  anxieties  about  the  future  of  my  opinions — 
church-theories,  and  the  like.  Where  am  I  drifting 
to  ?  Will  not  the  stone  fall  some  day  on  me  ?  These 
are  the  questions  which  will  rise  up.  To  work  fear- 
lessly, to  follow  earnestly  after  Truth,  to  rest  with  a 
childlike  confidence  in  God's  guidance,  to  leave  one's 
lot  willingly  and  heartily  to  Him — this  is  my  sermon 
to  myself.  If  we  could  live  more  within  sight  of 
Heaven  we  should  care  less  for  the  turmoil  of  earth. 
While  we  remain  mere  ministers  of  the  Church  of 
England  we  must  be  afraid  of  our  neighbours'  ill-will, 
of  accusations  of  atheism,  of  "  ignorant  bishops"  ;  but 
once  become  a  minister  of  the  Church  Eternal,  and 
the  cry  of  controversy  falls  unheeded  on  ears  that  are 
deaf  to  all  but  the  Heavenly  harpings  around  the 
Throne.  Of  course  this  is  what  people  are  ready  to 
sneer  at — Mysticism.  But  in  the  union  of  Mysticism 
with  freedom  of  thought  and  inquiry  will,  I  am  per- 
suaded, be  found  the  faith  of  the  future.  Of  this, 
however,  more  hereafter.  —  Believe  me,  yours  most 
sincerely,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
May  1 86 1. 

DEAR  OLD  FELLOW — I  have  two  pleasant  letters  of 
yours  to  reply  to,  and  I  think  I  had  better  go  through 
them  seriatim.  .  .  . 

Now  for  your  last  little  note.  Don't  get  in  a  rage, 
and  call  me  a  coward  for  what  I  am  going  to  say. 
What  is  the  meaning  of  this  window  to  Robertson  of 
Brighton  ?  Is  it  a  counter  protest  ?  Tell  me  very 
frankly  if  it  is — if  it  is  likely  even  to  be  taken  so. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  81 

If  it  be  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  much  as 
I  love  and  reverence  the  man.  Don't  misunderstand 
me.  I  feel  the  great  temptation  of  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  myself  denounced  in  the  Record.  There  are 
times  when  I  long  for  a  fight,  as  when  I  read  for 
instance  of  the  renewed  refusal  of  Jowett's  just  claims 
to  a  stipend.  But  speaking  calmly  I  see  more  and 
more  reason  for  keeping  clear  of  controversy.  In  a 
mere  worldly  sense  a  reply  keeps  the  ball  up.  When 
Johnson  was  asked  why  he  did  not  extinguish  the 
petty  libels  against  him  by  an  answer,  he  said,  "  There 
is  nothing  the  rascals  would  like  better,  but  it  takes 
two  people  to  play  at  battledore  and  shuttlecock,  and 
I  shan't  help  them."  And  in  another  sense  I  can't 
afford  to  fight.  Just  look  at  dear  little  Stanley.  See 
how  controversy  is  dragging  him  down  from  his  natural 
sphere  of  the  widest  charity — embittering  him — though 
one  still  feels  the  jar  of  linking  together  two  such 
names  as  bitterness  and  Stanley.  I  have  perfect  faith 
in  the  truth.  I  don't  think  it  needs  defence  of  ours. 
I  do  think  it  needs  our  silence.  The  clamour  will  pass 
away,  and  not  a  few  will  look  back  on  their  share 
of  it  with  shame.  I  don't  think  we  shall  have  any 
shame  in  looking  back  at  our  siknt  endeavour.  But 
tell  me  more  of  Stanley.  What  is  the  "  row "  about 
him — tell  me  all  the  particulars.  I  am  most  anxious 
to  hear  about  them.  You  must  have  guessed  what  a 
vivid  pleasure  your  pluck  in  joining  his  class  at  this 
moment  would  give  me.  Thank  you  for  it,  dear 
Dax. — Yours  most  sincerely,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

June  19,  1 86 1. 

[Arnold  is  Mr.  Thomas  Arnold,  son  of  Dr.  Arnold, 
and  father  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  just  read  with  horror  at  the 
end  of  your  note  from  the  railway  station,  "  I  expect 

G 


82  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

a  letter  on  Tuesday."  Rusticus  expectat !  item  with 
double  horror  in  its  first  page,  that  my  last  "  was  not 
of  satisfactory  length."  My  letters  are  not  "  strata," 
but  rather  little  patches  of  rich  deposit.  You  are  not 
to  rush  over  them,  as  you  would  pace  over  your  own, 
but  sit  down  with  sieve  and  hammer,  and  find  a  specimen 
in  every  line. 

De  libro  !  your  Huxtable  success  fades  before  mine. 
At  the  Bishop's  fete  I  picked  up  Arnold  (quondam 
orator,  and  Oxford  man),  now  busy  reviewing  for  the 
Literary  Gazette,  and  contributing  to  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  etc.  He  wishes  much  to  make  my  acquaint- 
ance, and  will  give  us  a  lift  certainly  in  the  Literary 
Gazette,  and  probably  in  other  quarters,  on  the  appear- 
ance of  Somerset.  This  will  sell  fifty  copies,  or  perhaps 
double  that  number. 

Your  paper  on  the  relation  of  Tert.  Fossils  to  the 
Development  Theory  must  be  most  interesting.  I  feel 
impatient  to  see  it,  although  I  am  resolved  not  to  dabble 
in  science,  which  I  have  no  time  to  pursue  scientifically. 
Dobbs  sent  me  a  full  and  most  entertaining  account  of 
the  Yarnton  discoveries.  At  present  they  seem  "  date- 
less," but  I  should  fancy  that  further  search,  and  the 
instructions  which  Dobbs  has  given,  will  furnish  some 
clue  to  the  important  point.  Was  it  from  you  that  I 
learnt  that  the  bit  of  green  metal  found  turned  out  a 
part  of  a  Roman  fibula,  or  something  of  the  sort?  If 
so,  we  have  bodies  interred  in  a  fashion  (crouching) 
characteristic  of  British  or  Celtic  burial,  yet  in  a  Roman 
age.  This  would  confirm  my  belief  that  our  so-called 
British  cairns,  etc.,  date  really  during  the  period  of 
Roman  connection  with,  or  rule  over,  England,  i.e. 
either  from  the  first  or  second  conquest  to  the  close  of 
their  empire  in  Britain.  My  fluctuating  health  has 
taken  a  good  turn,  when  all  else  are  waxing  pale  and 
withery  under  the  Tartarian  heat.  I  will  improve 
steadily  till  you  appear. — Believe  me,  my  dear  Dax, 
yours  most  sincerely,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  83 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

June  26,  1 86 1. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Your  curator  plan  seems  a  very 
excellent  one.  Perhaps  I  am  prejudiced  in  its  favour 
by  the  hope  of  having  you  so  near  me.  But  we  can 
talk  more  about  it  when  we  meet.  I  shall  be  very  happy 
to  "  receive  "  you,  and  if  you  will  tell  me  the  date  of 
your  arrival  will  procure  you  a  bed  either  here  or  in  the 
vicinity. 

You  have  no  doubt  seen  in  the  papers  an  account  of 
ye  great  fire  across  the  Thames.  But  no  account  that 
I  have  seen  at  all  realises  its  horror.  On  the  Saturday 
night  I  was  at  Dr.  Stanley's  in  Belgrave  Square.  We 
heard  rumours  of  a  great  fire  near  London  Bridge,  and 
saw  the  clouds  above  breaking  up  into  fiery  islets,  with 
gaps  of  bright  blue  sky  between  them.  Leaving  Stanley's 
at  eleven,  Coxhead  and  I  cabbed  away  to  London 
Bridge.  Great  streams  of  people  were  pouring  down 
Cheapside,  and  as  we  turned  into  King  William  Street 
the  great  dome  of  St.  Paul's  towered  all  bright  with  the 
reflected  blaze  above  us,  and  the  top  of  the  monument 
shone  out  against  the  dark  smoke-clouds  that  went 
whirling  by.  The  long  file  of  carriages  moved  step  by 
step  onwards,  and  brought  us  at  last  to  the  bridge, 
thronged  with  a  wild  excited  mob.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  sight  that  broke  on  my  eyes.  On  the  north  side 
lay  the  custom-house,  etc.,  its  rows  of  lamps  looking 
pale  and  ghastly  in  the  glare,  and  behind  the  long  rows 
of  buildings  stretched  away  etched  out  by  the  vivid 
light  of  the  conflagration.  Beneath  rolled  on  the  river, 
of  a  dark  slate  colour,  dotted  with  thousands  of  boats, 
each  with  its  reverse  side  undistinguishable  from  the 
dark  stream,  while  the  side  fronting  the  flames  reflected 
a  bright  white  light.  On  the  southern  side  of  the 
Thames  a  great  band  of  melted  oils  and  fats  went  slowly 
floating  down,  burning  with  an  intense  white  glare 
around  the  carcases  of  boats  and  filth  up  to  the  edge 


84  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

of  the  wharves.  From  that  edge,  over  a  space  of  five 
or  six  acres,  lay  a  vast  hell  of  fire.  No  other  word 
would  describe  it.  Dark  volumes  of  heavy  smoke 
dipped  down  and  surged  upwards  over  the  sea  of  red 
lurid  flame,  through  which  ran  lines  of  vivid  white 
light  that  marked  the  ranges  of  burning  warehouses. 
And  on  the  outskirts  of  this  awful  scene  lay  a  thick 
belt  of  smoke,  parted  here  and  there  by  fresh  swirls  of 
flame  that  leapt  ever  onward  to  some  new  prey  ;  on  to  a 
fresh  range  of  great  stores  on  the  one  side  ;  on  the  other, 
to  the  old  church  of  St.  Olave,  whose  clock  struck  mid- 
night quietly  as  of  old  in  the  midst  of  the  "thud-thud" 
of  the  engines,  the  songs  of  the  firemen,  the  excited 
shout  and  hum  of  the  vast  crowd  on  the  bridge.  And 
over  all  brooded  a  night  still,  calm,  breezeless.  Men 
watched  in  agony  the  slightest  jet  of  wind  that  came 
up  the  river,  for  there  was  not  one  who  did  not  know 
that  if  the  wind  freshened  all  Bermondsey  was  doomed. 
But  the  lull  continued,  as  though  the  angel  of  destruction 
withheld  his  hand  from  this  crowning  chastisement. 

An  interruption  here  reminds  me  that  I  have  said 
enough  about  the  fire.  A  word  about  our  book.  There 
is  a  copy  of  the  Somerset  Arch<eol.  Soc.  Trans,  in  the 
British  Museum  library.  They  are  absolutely  necessary 
for  me.  Is  Huxtable  a  member,  or  any  one  else,  who 
could  lend  them  ?  Tax  your  memory.  I  have  finished 
Glastonbury,  and  shall  now  begin  my  work  in  order, 
working  in  the  materials  I  have  gathered  as  I  go  on. 
I  sketched  the  opening  last  night.  I  found  the  re- 
ferences at  the  bottom  of  the  opening  page  would  be 
to  Deuteronomy,  Michelet's  France,  the  Iliad — a  collec- 
tion worthy  of  my  omni-gatherum  reading. — Believe 
me,  dear  Dax,  yours  very  sincerely,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
August  23,  1 86  r. 

My  DEAR  DAX — Many  thanks  for  your  letter — - 
improved  like  wine  by  keeping.  The  best  "  point  "  in 


IT  CLERICAL  CAREER  85 

your  notes  was  the  dip  into  the  cloud  and  the  rise  out 
of  it.  With  your  keen  eye  for  scenery  and  the  detail 
of  a  landscape  you  will  by  reading,  especially  by  read- 
ing poetry,  obtain  in  time  that  power  of  grouping  and 
classifying  which  makes  just  the  difference  between  a 
picture  and  a  catalogue. 

Let  me  hear  a  little  in  your  next  about  your  geology, 
your  success  in  quarries,  any  new  ideas  which  have 
started  up  in  your  mind.  My  own,  braced  by  the 
fresh  air  I  too  soon  relinquished,  is  brimming  over 
with  theories  and  "  broad  philosophic  views "  to  use 
M.'s  scoffing  phrase.  I  have  been  working  very  hard 
at  the  Early  Irish  Church  History — an  operation  very 
like  travelling  through  a  jungle,  but  still  I  think  likely 
to  work  up  into  my  Opus  satisfactorily. 

At  present  I  am  eager  about  getting  my  poor  school 
children  a  breath  of  fresh  air  ;  I  mean  organising  a 
trip  to  Epping  Forest  for  them.  £  s.  d.  is  the  diffi- 
culty, as  subscriptions  have  been  very  rife  among  us 
lately  here,  and  our  good  people  are  tired.  I  am 
now  trying  the  bad  ones — but  I  want  you  to  help 
me  with  half- a -crown  (send  it  in  stamps),  which 
will  enable  us  to  give  five  poor  white-cheeked  little 
wretches  a  day  of  great  enjoyment — I  am  sure  you 
will  not  refuse.  It  will  be  a  thank-offering  for  the 
fine  weather. 

I  have  just  had  two  charming  letters,  one  from 
Trevor  Owen  who  has  deferred  his  M.A.  till  next 
term  in  order  that  he  may  take  it  with  me,  which 
delights  me  ;  another  from  my  brother.  The  clock 
is  striking — I  will  send  a  second  sheet  to-morrow. — 
Yours  sincerely,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
September  16,  1861. 

[Du  Chaillu's  Explorations  in  Equatorial  Africa^ 
published  in  1861,  with  accounts  of  the  habits  of 


86  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

the  gorillas,   had   been    received  with   much    sceptical 
criticism.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Whether  you  are  in  debt  to  me 
or  I  to  you  I  can't  remember.  Whichever  is  the  case, 
our  silence  has  lasted  so  long  that  I  think  it  comes 
under  the  statute  of  limitations,  and  the  creditor  is 
debarred  even  from  a  right  to  complain.  In  your 
last  you  kindly  offered  2s.  6d.  towards  our  fete.  I 
found  myself  in  a  fearful  financial  hobble — but  my 
good  genius  came  to  my  rescue,  brought  me  ^i  from 
the  Miss  Boyds,  rolled  40  tizzies  out  of  Macphail's 
pockets,  extracted  30  bob  from  D.  Castle  at  Bristol, 
and  landed  me  on  the  shore  of  solvency.  The  day  was 
a  most  delightful  one,  Epping  a  real  Forest.  I  shocked 
two  prim  maiden  teachers  by  starting  kiss-in-the-ring  ; 
I  astonished  the  Scripture-reader — a  really  energetic 
fellow — by  my  energy  and  decision.  ("  He  didn't 
think  Mr.  Green  had  so  much  in  him  !  ")  I  returned 
in  triumph  with  only  one  child  in  a  ditch,  and  the 
applause  of  the  parochial  mothers,  while  the  children 
extemporised  a  chorus  on  their  return  passage  : — 

We've  had  a  happy  day — ay — ay — 
We've  had  a  happy  day — ay — ay 
And  for  it  we're  indebted  (ter) 

To  Mr.  Green  (with  sublime  energy). 

The  British  Association  seemed  to  me  a  lame  affair 
this  year,  but  the  opening  address  by  Murchison  (so 
far  as  I  could  understand  it)  was  very  interesting. 
The  discovery  of  the  marine  formation  of  coal  was 
quite  new  to  me,  and  solved  many  questions  which  had 
of  old  suggested  themselves.  Surely  his  Scottish  in- 
vestigations go  far  to  confirm  the  theories  of  Lyell  as 
to  the  metamorphic  nature  of  the  lower  rocks.  But 
my  geology  is  rapidly  drifting  away  from  me — and  yet 
what  a  glorious  science  it  is — while  I  plunge  deeper 
into  historical  research.  My  ecclesiastical  studies  have 
plunged  me  into  that  Irish  Bog  called  the  Legends  of 
Patrick,  and  when  I  shall  emerge  I  know  not.  I  want 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  87 

very  much  to  write  to  Dobbs  on  the  subject,  but  it  is 
in  vain  I  implore  you  to  communicate  his  direction. 
Do! 

I  am  rather  breaking  up  again,  in  spite  of  cold  water 
and  early  rising,  and  what  is  more  trouble,  my  hair  is 
coming  off  in  double-quick  time.  I  shall  soon  be  bald 
and  be-wigged — well  you  are  such  a  gorilla.  Apropos 
of  which  the  Athenaeum  has  turned  round,  and  is  calling 
on  Du  Chaillu  derisively  to  produce  his  letters  from 
the  Gaboon,  which  must  have  arrived  by  this  time  but 
have  never  shown  up.  A  more  serious  grief  to  me 
has  been  the  severe  illness  of  Mrs.  Ward,  who,  on  our 
return  from  our  children's  /?/<?,  was  attacked  with  a 
severe  internal  seizure,  whose  nature  the  doctors  can 
hardly  tell,  but  which  was  of  a  most  agonising  character. 
She  is  now  happily  recovering,  but  is  terribly  weak  and 
pale.  I  know  you  laugh  at  my  enthusiasm  about  her  ; 
but  it  is  something  for  me,  too,  to  have  one  who  loves 
me  for  my  own  sake,  not  as  some  do,  for  my  head, 
and  who  gives  me,  what  I  have  never  known — a  home. 
It  was  this — not  a  wife — that — as  you  know — I  used 
to  long  for  of  old,  and  this  God  has  given  me  here. 
He  has  given  me  something  more — an  Ideal  of  Christian 
Womanhood — which  hushes  and  awes  my  own  sceptical 
brain  into  a  silent  reverence  and  love. 

I  am  looking  about  for  a  school  for  my  sister — and 
should  be  glad  for  you  to  make  some  inquiries  (mind 
near  London)  —  then  send  me  the  directions  of,  or 
introductions  to,  some  authorities  in  re  Somersetshire. 
Then  let  me  have  those  Transactions  of  the  Somerset 
Archaeological  from  your  friend. — Believe  me,  sincerely 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE,  1 86 1. 

This  starts  a  day  later  than  I  had  intended,  my  dear 
Dax,  for  yesterday  found  me  too  tired  with  sick  visits 
and  the  like  (fevers  being  very  plentiful  just  now),  that 


88  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  feared  to  inflict  my  tedium  on  you  and  deferred  writ- 
ing till  to-day.  With  but  little  advantage,  for  to-day 
finds  me  spent  with  a  good  morning's  grind  at  the 
British  Museum  over  "  Roman  Bath,"  and  I  fear  I  shall 
be  as  tedious  as  ever. 

I  have  finished  Patrick,  and  flung  my  Ch.  Hist, 
work  to  the  dogs,  and  taken  my  final  plunge  into 
Somerset.  I  find  the  Celtic  part  to  be  as  I  conjectured, 
(illegible']  if  there  be  such  a  word,  without  date  I  mean. 
A  tumulus  may  be  a  century  older  than  Cassar,  or  have 
been  thrown  up  by  Cassibelan,  or  be  coeval  with  Con- 
stantine  ;  some  tumuli  are  indisputably  Roman,  not 
merely  erected  during  the  Roman  occupation  by  the 
Romano-Britons,  but  by  the  Romans  themselves  !  This 
question  in  fact  is  in  the  sceptical  stage,  a  stage  very 
useful  to  it,  but  precluding  all  historical  treatment. 

Roman  Somerset,  on  the  contrary,  I  think  I  can 
treat  in  great  detail  and  minuteness.  Their  towns, 
their  country  houses,  their  farms,  their  roads,  camps, 
mines,  all  have  left  pretty  traceable  marks  of  themselves, 
though  of  the  latter,  except  the  tools  I  have  heard  of  as 
being  found  in  the  workings  at  Mendip,  I  can  find  little 
mention.  I  should  be  glad  if  you  would  make  inquiries 
on  this  point.  Ilchester,  of  which  you  give  so  Hudi- 
brastic  an  account,  is  a  famous  Roman  station  ;  don't 
forget  always  to  inquire  after  old  charters,  deeds,  etc. 
I  want,  too,  the  direction  of  that  card  at  Axbridge,  get 
it  from  Williamson,  when  you  are  with  him. 

Apropos  of  W.,  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  your  resump- 
tion of  the  cave-business.  Let  me  hear  of  your  success 
in  re  ossid.  When  are  we  to  become  members  of  the 
Somerset  Archaeological  Association  ?  It  will  be  need- 
ful for  the  Opus, — will  it  not  ?  And  what  sort  of  a 
reception  does  your  mention  of  it  meet  in  the  country  ? 
I  should  have  been  glad,  unscientific  as  I  am,  to  have 
heard  a  little  more  of  your  Triassic  reformations.  It 
would  be  good  practice  for  you  to  have  to  bend  your 
pen  down  to  my  level,  even  if  it  were  a  little  tiresome. 
My  own  life  is  so  monotonous  as  to  furnish  scarcely 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  89 

anything  for  a  letter.  I  had,  however,  a  funny  visit  the 
other  day.  There  was  one  fellow — a  big  chap  at  school 
— against  whom  I  cherished  an  undying  hate.  Common 
injustice  on  M.'s  part  threw  us  a  little  together,  when 
his  father's  death  threw  him  literally  without  a  penny 
on  the  world.  He  disappeared  in  Devonshire  ;  I  heard 
of  him  last  as  an  usher,  and  my  heart  being  touched  I 
wrote  to  him,  but  my  letters  remained  unanswered. 
The  other  day  he  hunted  me  up  in  my  rooms,  bearded, 
bronzed.  He  had  been  usher  here,  there,  everywhere — 
he  had  lived  upon  twopence  a  day — he  had  taught 
himself  mathematics — he  had  paid  scores  of  old  debts — 
he  was  now  mad  with  tic  from  want  of  good  food,  and 
yet  stood  before  me  with  a  coat  far  better  than  mine, 
and  a  certain  prospect  of  £300  a  year !  The  fact  was 
that  in  extremity  of  want  he  heard  of  a  great  railway 
contractor  to  whom  he  could  get  an  introduction, — went 
to  him  and  was  told  he  could  have  a  small  place  at 
home  at  once, — "  but  if  you  knew  surveying  I  could 
give  you  employment  on  a  South  American  line  of  a 
better  sort," — hurried  back  to  his  friend,  who  happened 
to  be  Captain  Drayson,  Head  of  the  Surveying  Depart- 
ment at  Woolwich,  with  whom  he  was  then  staying, 
learnt  Survey  in  a  week,  and  has  won  his  post  of  ^300 
a  year  !  Well  he  deserves  to  be  a  millionaire.  I  was 
struck  with  the  great  good  which  hardship  had  done 
him,  and  wondered  whether,  if  want  had  ever  looked  me 
so  hard  in  the  face,  I  should  be  the  weak,  easily-shut-up- 
able  creature  I  am  now.  And  yet  I  fag  pretty  well — 
some  seven  or  eight  hours  per  diem,  and  my  brain  was 
never  more  vigorous. 

I  am  in  dread  of  being  left  alone,  as  both  the  incum- 
bent and  Mrs.  W.  leave  for  the  seaside  in  a  week  or  so. 
This  to  me  is  a  horrible  expectation,  and  I  expect  great 
dumps,  so  that  your  visit  in  passing  through  would  be 
a  great  piece  of  charity.  Let  me  hear  soon  from  you 
in  spite  of  my  dilatoriness. — Believe  me,  sincerely  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


90  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
October  18,  1861. 

The  readiest  way  of  bringing  me  to  Oxford,  my 
dear  Dax,  would  be  to  ascertain  for  me  these  particulars. 
i  st.  Am  I  of  sufficient  standing  to  take  my  M.A.  ? 
(This  learn  from  Gilby  or  some  authority.  /  don't 
know  even  the  date  of  my  matriculation.)  2nd.  If  so, 
— what  does  the  degree  cost  ? — what  is  requisite  ? — and 
what  are  the  degree  days  ?  If  you  let  me  know  these 
items  at  once  we  will  hold  the  first  meeting  of  the 
New  Somerset  Historical  and  Geological  Association  at 
Oxford  in  a  very  short  time.  "  The  meeting  was  well 
attended.  We  were  happy  to  see  the  Rev.  J.  R.  Green, 
and  A.  E.  Dobbs,  Esq.  on  the  platform.  The  chair 
was  taken  by  the  celebrated  geologist,  W.  Boyd 
Dawkins,  who,  after  an  inaugural  lecture  on  mud, 
called  on  the  Rev.  J.  R.  Green  to  read  his  paper  '  On 
Roman  spoons  and  on  the  mode  in  use  at  that  period  of 
locking  them  up.'  Mr.  Dobbs,  after  contesting  the 
position  of  the  Rev.  Gentleman,  and  eloquently  proving 
that  no  specimen  of  a  Roman  plate  basket  had  ever 
been  discovered,  exhibited  a  fragment  of  a  Roman  or 
Saxon  teapot,  the  spout  and  body  of  which  were  lost. 
This  interesting  relic  was  last  exhibited  at  the  '  Handle 
Festival.'  Mr.  Dobbs  then  read  a  brief  paper  on  the 
phrase  '  Does  your  mother  know  you  are  out  ? '  which 
he  attributed  to  Deborah,  in  a  copy  of  whose  song, 
preserved  in  the  library  of  T.  C.,  Dublin,  it  is  found  as 
a  last  triumphant  taunt  over  the  unfortunate  Sisera. 
Our  reporter  was  here  unfortunately  overpowered  by 
sleep,  but  has  been  courteously  informed  by  the  chair- 
man that  after  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Messrs.  Dobbs  and 
Green,  moved  and  seconded  by  the  chairman,  and  a 
vote  of  thanks  to  the  chairman,  moved  by  Mr.  Green 
and  seconded  by  Mr.  Dobbs,  the  meeting  ended."  But 
what  have  I  to  do  (I,  a  John  Baptist, — christening  East 
End  babies  in  the  desert  of  St.  Luke's)  with  those  that 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  91 

dwell  in  king's  houses,  St.  Audrie,  —  Brighton,  etc. 
What  friendship  with  them  who  take  down  the  Court 
Guide  to  ascertain  their  friends'  directions  ?  I  am  much 
more  at  ease  among  snobs.  To  find  "  the  centre  of  a 
large  circle  "  at  Brighton  or  elsewhere  has  an  odour  of 
Euclid  Bk.  III.  about  it,  which  is  eminently  disagree- 
able to  the  unmathematical.  I  cant "  cultivate  "  centres 
(though  my  Incumbent  complains  of  my  tendency  to 
cultivate  Z)/.rsenters).  Seriously,  however,  my  dear 
Dax,  I  rejoiced  much  over  your  triumphs.  They  roll 
on  grandly  like  those  Homeric  beggars  of  whom 
Diomed  kills  a  dozen  in  a  line.  I  shall  tie  my  cockle- 
boat  to  the  big  ship  Dawkins  Ai,  and  let  it  tow  me 
into  harbour.  Throw  us  a  rope,  old  card,  it  won't 
hinder  you  much,  you  know. 

You  see  my  spirits  have  returned,  spite  of  my 
Incumbent's  absence,  and  the  presence  of  a  sore  throat. 
In  fact  an  adorer  hinted  that  the  great  "  hindrance  to 
my  ministerial  success"  was  my  tendency  to  laugh. 
Still  it  is  awfully  dull,  the  "  idea  "  being  away,  and  my 
head  having  been  too  ill  the  greater  part  of  this  week 
to  read.  Left  alone  as  I  am  I  have  little  leisure  for 
work,  but  I  hope  to  bring  you  down  the  Introduction, 
Early  Belgic,  and  Roman  periods  of  our  Opus.  I 
suppose  all  you  have  to  do  now  is  to  throw  the  stores 
you  have  collected  into  shape,  a  task  more  tedious 
than  it  seems.  Did  you  ascertain  from  W.  the  name 
of  that  publisher  at  Bath  who  sent  him  that  offer,  or 
of  that  Axbridge  Quaker  ? 

I  suppose  you  know  all  about  B.'s  disappointment — 
his  success  in  obtaining  an  appointment  and  subsequent 
rejection  by  the  medical  referees.  It  is  a  great  blow 
to  him,  and  he  seems  thoroughly  thrown  on  his  beam- 
ends.  I  have  advised  him  to  seek  your  counsel  if  up 
at  Oxford.  He  is,  I  still  think,  a  very  different 
fellow  from  the  Welsh  ruck  of  Jesus,  and  perhaps  this 
may  be  a  turning-point  in  his  life.  He  seems  to  have 
a  tendency  towards  Geology — perhaps  he  would  read 
with  you  for  the  Phys.  Science  School,  if  he  has  time 


92  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

enough,  for  Classics  are  out  of  the  question. — Believe 
me,  my  dear  Dax,  yours  very  sincerely, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

November  28,  1861. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Good  news  and  bad  news,  worried 
and  pleased,  I  want  to  have  a  chat  with  you.  Last — a 
she-worry,  our  lady  organist  here,  has  been  making  me 
"a  monster  unto  many,"  by  twisting  my  jokes  into 
earnest,  till  people  believe  my  earnest  a  joke.  I  was 
awfully  riled  for  five  minutes,  fancying  it  very  awful  to 
be  thought  a  hypocrite  ;  but  that  fancy  is  wearing  off, 
and  I  find  the  imputation  not  nearly  as  uncomfortable 
to  bear  as  might  be  expected.  The  only  wonder  to  me 
is  how  the  '•'•good  people"  live.  To  have  to  rise  at 
8,  and  not  lie  down  till  10,  and  walk  about  all 
day  with  a  terror  about  the  slightest  crack  in  your 
spotless  reputation — your  ears  tingling  with  a  pre- 
vision of  the  howl  that  would  greet  your  fall,  the  sighs 
and  groans  and  lamentations  of  the  other  "  good 
people  "  who  must  have  a  fling  at  you  to  show  that 
they  are  in  no  danger  of  a  similar  lapse,  this  beats 
Blondin.  Whereas  I  walk  whistling  along,  secure  in 
having  no  character  to  lose,  and  conscious  that  if  I  were 
to  pick  a  pocket  people  would  only  say  drily,  "  Just 
what  we  expected,"  and  "  Pass  by  on  the  other  side." 

And  now,  sick  of  "  I,"  and  jumping  over  "  O " 
one  comes  to  "  U."  How  are  U  ?  U  found  your 
journey  a  success,  and  came  back  with  the  two 
preceding  vowels  Triumphe,  did  you  ?  Accept  my  con- 
gratulations. I  have  paid  your  Pastoral  Aid  subscrip- 
tion of  ^i  :  i  :  o  ("no  gentleman  subscribes  a  pound  ") 
to  our  treasurer,  in  order  to  have  a  distinct  motive 
for  heartily  wishing  to  see  you  in  Town.  The  move 
succeeded,  and  I  have  a  strong  desire  to  look  upon 
your  face  again. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  93 

Write  at  once,  and  let  me  know  whether  D.  is  through. 
If  those  examiners  knew  him,  I  would  defy  them  to 
pluck  him.  He  would  just  say,  "  How  d'ye  do  ?  "  in 
his  own  way,  and  Testamurs  by  scores  would  flutter 
out  of  their  pockets,  sign  themselves,  and  flutter  off 
into  his.  D.'s  "  How  do  you  do?  "  is  a  speech  in  itself. 
It  gives  you  a  general  impression  that  men  are  not 
half  as  bad  as  you  thought  them,  apologises  for  un- 
answered letters,  assures  you  of  the  warmest  friendship, 
and  sets  your  mind  at  rest  on  every  topic  which  has 
of  old  made  it  anxious.  I  suppose  it  is  this  last 
property  of  it  which  makes  it  as  sovereign  against 
scepticism,  as  it  is  against  indigestion  and  blue  devils, 
Strauss  and  Frank  Newman,  and  Essays  and  Reviews 
vanish  away.  And  I  believe  that  the  secret  of  D.'s 
great  orthodoxy  is  this,  that  whenever  a  doubt  crosses 
his  mind  he  just  says  to  himself,  "  How  do  you  do, 
my  dear  D.,  how  do  you  do  ? "  and  in  an  instant 
becomes  as  sound  as  the  Thirty-nine  Articles. — Write 
at  once,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

January  6,  1862. 

Were  you  aware,  my  dear  Dax,  that  the  Somerset 
Arch.  Soc.  (I  copy  from  their  report  1852)  possesses 
"  an  important  unpublished  work  by  the  late  Mr. 
Williams,  on  the  Geology  of  Somerset,  Devon,  and 
Cornwall  ?  It  is  a  work  of  great  research,  and  contains 
new  views  of  the  order  of  strata  in  the  western 
counties.  The  manuscript  book  is  accompanied  by  Mr. 
W.'s  field  map  of  the  counties,  geologically  coloured, 
and  large  and  extensive  diagrams  of  the  district  in 
various  directions."  Mr.  W.'s  theories  may  be  as 
valuable,  say  as  Mr.  Dawkins's,  but  his  details,  I  should 
think,  might  bear  gleaning.  Now  we  are  on  the  topic 
of  our  book  I  have  a  little  to  tell,  if  I  have  not  told 
it  before,  of  my  interview  with  Stanley.  I  explained 


94  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

our  plan  as  a  whole — the  new  connection  established 
by  recent  discovery  between  the  two  sciences, — gave 
him  as  good  an  idea  as  I  could  of  the  way  you  meant 
to  treat  your  division,  and  spoke  at  large  of  my  own. 
He  cordially  approved  the  latter,  professing  himself 
utterly  at  sea  in  the  former,  but  was  full  of  encourage- 
ment, and  offers  of  "recommendation."  We  had 
better  apply  to  a  publisher  at  once^  he  said,  before  our 
subscription  list,  stating  what  our  expectations  from 
the  latter  would  be.  He  approved  of  our  plan  of 
obtaining  "introductions,"  suggested  Phillips  for  yours, 
and  offered  me  his  own.  On  the  whole  as  Parker  is 
interested  in  the  county,  he  recommended  me  to  apply 
to  him.  All  this  promises  a  good  voyage  to  our  little 
book,  and  I  think  we  may  as  well  apply  at  the 
beginning  of  next  term,  when  Stanley  and  Phillips  can 
speak  personally  for  us. 

I  remove  on  Saturday  to  my  rooms  at  30  Haver- 
stock  Street,  City  Road,  our  lay  assistant's  house. 
There  I  am  as  sure  of  cleanliness  as  I  am  here  of  dirt. 
When  shall  I  see  you  there?  An  ovation  waits  you 
in  King's  Square,  where  the  last  doll  has  received  the 
name  of  "  William  "  in  your  honour.  They  are  wonder- 
fully touched  with  your  thoughtful  kindliness.  I  being 
accustomed  to  it  was  so  little  affected  that  I  was 
unanimously  voted  hard-hearted. 

Meanwhile,  a  little  tact  is  doing  its  work.  My  old 
project,  so  long  held  in  check,  of  the  formation  of  a 
choir,  suddenly  finds  favour  in  the  sight  of  all.  My 
Incumbent  is  ready  with  the  salary  of  a  choir-instructor  ; 
one  friend  is  off  to  Exeter  Hall,  to  engage  men  for 
basses  and  tenors  ;  another  is  hot  upon  practising  the 
boys  steadily  for  a  hour  a  week.  I  expect  a  few  break- 
downs, but  we  shall  in  the  end  get  a  choir  ;  and  I  shall 
inscribe  on  my  shield,  when  I  take  to  wearing  one,  old 
Charles  V.'s  motto,  "  Time  and  I  against  any  three  " 
(mem.  the  three  not  to  be  Daxes,  I  am  so  awfully  afraid 
of  hoc  genus]. — Believe  me,  most  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  95 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

CITY  ROAD, 
January  15,  1862. 

You  will  see,  my  dear  Dax,  that  I  have  changed  my 
lodgings,  and  in  the  horrors  attendant  upon  the  change 
a  reason  why  I  have  not  answered  previously  the  letter 
of  yours  which  crossed  my  last.  However,  I  am  com- 
fortably settled  here  now,  and  impatient  to  see  you  in 
my  new  rooms. 

You  are  due  here,  are  you  not,  for  your  paper  before 
the  Geol.  Soc.  about  the  end  of  the  month  ?  Pray 
introduce  me  to  Macmillan  when  you  arrive,  if  such 
a  thing  be  possible.  You  never  made  a  better  hit. 
Among  the  Stanley  and  Kingsley  set  Macmillan  is  the 
"  pet  publisher  "  of  the  day.  Of  all  this,  however,  more 
when  we  meet.  I  had  this  morning  a  letter  from  Trevor 
Owen — he  is  the  busiest  of  curates — apparently  very 
happy  and  busied  in  his  parish.  Dick  tells  me  (from 
good  sources)  that  Ch.  is  becoming  an  Oxford  Simeon  ; 
has  eighty  men  at  prayer-meetings,  is  going  to  re-pew 
his  church  for  their  accommodation,  build  new  schools, 
etc.,  etc.  God  speed  him  !  There  may  be  higher  and 
nobler  creeds  than  his,  but  there  never  was  a  truer, 
more  earnest-minded  labourer  among  the  o-vvepjoi  Oeov. 
Perhaps  this  narrow  type  of  Evangelicalism  has  its  use, 
sweeps  the  narrower,  more  limited  minds  into  Christ's 
net,  gathers  up  "the  crumbs  that  remain  that  nothing 
be  lost."  God  is  a  great  Economist.  I  have  been 
immensely  struck,  in  going  over  the  "  Som.  Arc.  Ass.," 
to  find  how  all  their  attention  has  been  concentrated  on 
a  few  periods ;  on  the  British  (so-called)  and  Mediaeval 
times.  Roman  Somerset  attracts  very  little  attention, 
Saxon  ditto  none ;  there  is  not  a  paper  on  the  Norman 
period,  nor  on  the  Reformation,  only  one  on  the  Great 
Rebellion  time,  none  on  the  Monmouth  rebellion,  or 
thence  to  our  own  day.  I  think — if  I  do  nothing  else — 
I  shall  direct  the  attention  of  our  Somerset  friends  to 
new  diggings.  So  far  as  I  have  gone  I  am  at  no  loss 


96  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

for  materials.  I  have  a  question  or  two  for  you  to 
solve  if  you  visit  the  Taunton  Museum.  There  are 
some  birds'  bones  found  at  Worle  Camp,  with  those  of 
Bos  longifrons,  etc.,  British  pickings  of  disputed  age  ; 
I  fancy  bones  of  domestic  fowls,  which,  if  so,  would 
throw  great  light  on  date  of  such  remains.  I  don't 
doubt  you  could  bring  Osteology  to  bear  on  this  ques- 
tion— it  would  be  a  very  novel  application. 

Come  and  enjoy  your  repute  at  the  Parsonage.  My 
nose  is  sadly  dislocated  there,  and  I  am  every  day 
tempted  to  buy  an  advowson,  and  present  it  to  my 
Incumbent,  to  eclipse  your  generosity  !  The  next  living 
which  falls  in  your  way — pray,  think  of  me. — Your 
affect,  friend,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

THE  PARSONAGE,  KING'S  SQUARE, 
July  24,  1862. 

[This  letter  refers  to  the  death  of  Mrs.  Ward  on 
July  2,  1862.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  been  hoping  to  hear  from 
you  day  after  day  the  event  of  your  candidature  at 
Southampton,  which  I  am  afraid  by  your  silence  has 
been  unsuccessful.  With  such  testimonials,  however, 
as  yours,  ill-success  cannot  continue  long,  and  in  the 
meantime  you  can  safely  commit  your  way  to  the 
Wisdom  which  ordereth  our  going,  and  "  maketh 
our  way  acceptable"  to  Itself. 

It  is  very  hard,  however,  to  feel  this — harder  than  to 
write  it — this  perfect  submission  to  the  Will  of  God. 
You  know  to  what  I  allude,  but  you  cannot  know  how 
day  after  day  but  renews  the  sense  of  loss,  and  seems  to 
leave  me  but  the  more  desolate  than  before.  I  am  sure 
of  your  sympathy,  dear  Dax,  do  not  let  me  be  less  sure 
of  your  prayers. 

You  ask  in  what  way  the  aid  you  so  frankly  offer 
can  be  afforded.  I  did  not  point  to  any  particular 
mode  ;  you  might  hear  of  some  presentation  to  a  school 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  97 

for  one  boy,  or  of  an  exhibition  for  another,  or  of  some 
office  in  the  city  for  another  ;  if  such  things  chanced  to 
come  before  you  I  feel  sure  you  would  remember  these 
motherless  children.  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  me  to  be 
able  to  do  some  little  towards  comforting  them.  My 
poor  Incumbent  does  not  rally — rather  seems  to  yield  to 
depression  more  every  day. 

This  is  a  chill,  dull  letter,  and  yet  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
write  it  and  know  that  dull  as  it  is  you  will  be  glad  to 
have  it.  W.  blamed  me  for  refusing  any  legacy  from 
my  Aunt.  "What  if  you  were  ill  and  your  means 
failed  ? "  he  asked.  "  Then  I  should  write  to  Dax." — 
Good-bye,  friend,  loyal  and  true,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
July  25,  1862. 

I  write  merely  a  few  hurried  words,  my  dear  Dax,  to 
congratulate  you  on  your  accession  to  Jermyn  Street, 
announced  in  to-day's  Times.  Whatever  comes  your 
life-work  is  now  fully  begun.  You,  I  know,  will  not 
waste  precious  years  as  I  have  done  ;  with  you  life  and 
its  work  is  a  sacred  thing — the  Gift  of  God.  Let  me 
know  what  you  are  doing  and  thinking,  it  is  long  since 
I  have  heard  from  you. 

I  am  at  present  sleeping  up  at  Highgate,  where 
the  air  is  giving  me  tone  and  vigour  ;  not  that  I  am 
not  in  admirable  health,  but  depression  has  its  usual 
results. 

I  shudder  to  think  in  what  a  depth  of  worldiness 
this  great  sorrow  found  and  struck  me.  It  is  so  easy  to 
talk  of  Eternity,  and  so  hard  to  live  out  of  Time.  Yet 
this — if  any — is  the  lesson  of  Death  to  souls  that  must 
be  Eternal.  The  blow  has  humbled — if  it  has  crushed 
me — and  I  look  on  these,  her  little  ones,  coming  so  near 
to  God  in  the  simplicity  and  affectionateness  of  their 
piety,  while  I  stand  so  far  off  in  the  coldness  and  life- 
lessness  of  mine,  and  understand  the  Lord  "  Except  ye 

H 


9 8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

be   as  little   children   ye   cannot   see  the   Kingdom   of 
God." 

God  bless  you  in  all  things,  dear  Dax,  and  keep  you, 
true  friend  to  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN.1 

From  Diary 

WELLINGTON, 
August  20,  1862. 

The  meeting  followed,  and  after  papers  by  Hugo 
and  Parker  of  very  different  calibre,  I  read,  in  great  fear 
and  trembling,  my  "  St.  Dunstan."  It  "  took,"  was  much 
applauded,  and  the  critic  I  so  much  dreaded  took  me 
by  the  hand  as  I  came  down  and  congratulated  me. 
"  You  remember  me,  do  you  ?  I  remember  little  Johnny 
Green."  He  afterwards  introduced  me  to  his  wife, 
whose  Jacobite  songs  I  remember  with  my  Jacobite 
enthusiasm  years  ago.  Freeman  is  the  Philistine  of 
these  meetings,  but  nothing  has  been  of  such  use  to 
Archaeology  as  the  Archaeological  Philistine.  And 
moreover  beneath  his  brusqueness  lies  a  real  human 
heart  full  of  fun  and  life,  which  lights  up  a  tedious  dis- 
cussion wonderfully.  I  was  "  kudized  "  at  the  dejeuner 
by  Sandford,  our  President,  a  fine  old  English  gentleman 
of  the  open-faced,  open-waistcoated  style  ;  and  had  an 
interesting  walk  after  it  with  Parker,  who  told  me  of 
the  obstruction  he  had  met  with  in  endeavouring  to 
set  the  Colleges  to  investigate  their  own  history.  I 
mentioned  to  him  my  civic  scheme  ;  he  approved  of  it ; 
from  words  of  his  I  see  that  the  Dons  make  him  feel 
and  wince  under  his  position  of  a  "  citizen."  How  like 
Oxford!  We  met  Freeman  again.  "You  not  only 
read  your  books  well,  but  you  know  how  to  use  them." 
I  really  was  very  proud  of  the  praise.  He  followed  it 
up  by  requesting  me  to  write  for  the  Saturday.  I 

1  Three  letters  written  soon  afterwards  are  occupied  with  editorial  suggestions 
about  the  second  number  of  the  Druid ;  and  mention  the  meeting  at  Wellington, 
but  give  no  account  of  the  proceedings  there.  With  one  of  them  (August  14),  he 
sends  his  sermon  upon  Mrs.  Ward.  "  It  is  a  name  I  cannot  write  even  now 
without  tears.  Quoiidie  morimur,  says  Seneca  somewhere.  How  much  of 
myself  lies  buried  in  that  quiet  grave  I  hardly  yet  know." 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER 


99 


was  thunderstruck ;  but  promised  to  try.  I  don't 
suppose  I  shall  •  do.  Still  it  was  flattering  to  be  told, 
"I  was  desired  by  the  Editor  to  look  out  for  promising 
young  men,  so  I  askjyoa." 

He  adds — "  A  terrible  loneliness  presses  on  me  as  I 
write.  Oh,  I  would  give  all  that  opens  before  me  for 
one  word  from  those  still  lips.  If  God  will  but  grant 
me  to  help  forward  her  little  ones." 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
Sunday,  August  24. 

Rose  at  6.15.  Have  written  to  my  sister,  Dawkins, 
Agnes,  and  Walter,  and  breakfasted.  Sunday-school 
and  a  marriage  service  are  to  follow.  How  dingy  this 
neighbourhood  looks  after  that  glorious  country,  one 
limitless  park  broken  with  lanes  and  hedgerows  and 
glorious  elms,  dotted  with  patches  of  golden  corn  that 
caught  the  light  and  flung  it  over  the  landscape,  and 
set  in  that  wonderful  framework  of  hills.  There  is 
little  to  tie  me  here  now  save  my  little  ones — and  that 
is  not  little. 

Tuesday. — I  feel  my  return  to  the  heat  and  imprison- 
ment of  town  in  lassitude  of  body  and  mind.  Yester- 
day I  wrote  some  letters,  and  ran  through  Guizot's 
Visit  to  England  in  1 840,  a  book  weighed  down  with 
recollections  of  dead  diplomacies,  but  full  of  personal 
sketches  which  retain  their  interest,  and  of  just  and  fair 
reflections  on  English  society  and  institutions.  .  .  . 

This  morning,  after  writing  to  Hughes  and  D.,  I  read 
three-fourths  of  Ten  Tears  of  Imperialism  in  France, 
acute,  vigorous  in  style,  and  throwing  much  light  on 
the  France  of  to-day.  Certainly  there  is  a  life  and 
reality  about  Imperial  France  which  contrasts  strongly 
with  the  conventionalism,  miscalled  conservatism,  of 
the  France  of  Louis  Philippe.  .  .  . 

Saturday,  Aug.  30. — An  idle  week.  I  purpose 
reading  every  day  some  portion  of  French  and  English 
history  in  connection.  Thursday  I  read  Thierry's 


ioo  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Lettres  sur  FHistoire  de  France,  cap.  1-6,  and  yes- 
terday same  cap.  7-9,  and  Sismondi,  pref.  and  cap.  i. 
This  morning  rose  at  6.  From  7  to  8  Sismondi  (and 
after  breakfast  till  12),  cap.  2,  3,  4,  with  Lappenberg 
to  Agricola. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
September  i,  1862. 

[Green  did  not  at  this  time  become  a  contributor  to 
the  Saturday  Review,  though  he  had  some  communica- 
tion with  Freeman  about  it.] 

I  cannot  help  smiling,  my  dear  Dax,  at  the  contrast 
between  the  life  sketched  in  your  letter  and  the  life 
I  shall  have  to  describe  in  mine.  You — reading, 
geologising,  slanging  Browne,  writing  papers,  organising 
a  Natural  History  Society,  sketching  curates,  finding  a 
bone-cave  in  the  sermon,  off  to  the  British  Association, — 
I  petting  little  Margie  on  the  sofa,  and  preferring  a  chat 
with  her  to  writing  my  crack  article  for  the  Saturday, 
"  Do  you  know,  Mr.  Green,  why  mamma  has  gone  to 
Heaven?  Jesus  wanted  her !"  I  wonder  how  much 
deeper  the  Saturday  could  have  gone  than  this  little 
philosopher  of  four.  She  is  very  puzzled  about  the 
question  of  recognition.  "  Mamma  is  an  angel  now. 
How  shall  I  know  her  when  I  go  to  Heaven  ?  Oh, 
I  know,  she  will  come  and  tell  me  she  is  my  own 
mamma.  Shall  you  go  to  Heaven,  Mr.  Green  ?  oh 
yes,  you  will  come  with  us,  and  we  shall  all  be  together 
again."  Do  you  ever  feel  humbled  and  guilty  before  a 
child  ?  I  thought,  and  think  still  of  her,  "  Shall  you 
go  to  Heaven  ?  "  and  know  not  what  to  say.  I  daresay 
it  is  very  unphilosophical,  very  "contrary  to  sound 
doctrine,"  but  Heaven  is  far  dearer  to  me  now  one  I 
love  is  there.  And  yet  I  cannot  say,  with  my  little 
one,  "  Oh  yes."  Impressions  that  seemed  so  deep  flit 
away  so  fast,  and  Eternity  that  revealed  itself  across  the 
grave  shrouds  itself  again,  and  Heaven  that  seemed  so 
near  recedes  farther  and  farther  away.  Oh,  if  I  love 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  101 

Heaven  I  love  all ;  even  the  affections  that  chain  most 
men  to  earth  are  there  to  draw  me  thither.  Pray  for 
me,  Dax,  as  I  for  you,  that  we  may  answer  this  child's 
question  with  her  "Oh  yes." 

It  is  a  little  additional  bond  between  us  that  you  like 
Elia.  Lamb's  humour  has  a  delicate  and  evanescent 
flavour  that  can  only  be  described  by  his  own  words  in 
describing  the  flavour  of  "  Roast  Pig."  Of  course  you 
have  read  that  incomparable  essay.  I  knew  a  Goth 
once  who  wrote  on  the  margin  of  his  copy  (he  lent  it 
to  my  sister  Addie,  who  showed  it  me),  "  I  don't  believe 
a  word  of  it."  I  longed  for  dear  Charles  Lamb  to  rise 
again  and  enjoy  the  joke. 

Pray  pursue  your  investigations  de  castris  rotundis. 
In  spite  of  Warre's  explanations  they  strike  at  the  root 
of  his  theories.  He  believes  "  round  camp  "  to  =  Belgic  ; 
the  Belgas  being  an  invading  people  from  (prob.) 
Northern  Gaul,  and  this  being  "  their  type."  Now  if 
the  round  form  be,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  determined 
by  local  considerations,  it  is  impossible  to  draw  any 
radical  distinction  between  these  and  other  camps. 
They  may  have  been  works  of  the  same  people  under 
different  circumstances.  And  "  may  have  been  "  is  all 
he  alleges  for  his  own  theory.  As  to  the  date  of  "  hut 
circles,"  it  is,  I  think,  a  far  more  difficult  question  than 
archaeologists  generally  suppose.  Remembering  the 
swarms  of  outlaw  bands,  at  various  times  of  our  history, 
and  the  degraded  condition  of  the  peasantry  till  quite  a 
late  epoch,  it  requires,  I  think,  some  boldness  to  date 
them  before  the  invasion  of  Claudius.  However,  this  is 
"treason,"  and  for  your  own  ear  alone.  .  .  . — Good- 
bye, dear  Dax,  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
September  6,  1862. 

[This  letter  refers  to  the  DruidJ] 

Your  "  quiet  Sunday  "  project,  dear  Dax,  has  given 
quite  a  spur  to  my  never  very  slumbering  desire  to  see 


102  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  chat  with  you.  I  have  no  friends — dogs,  horses, 
cats,  or  mice — and  I  can  but  trust  that  "  gubs  "  are  as 
rare  as  vipers. 

B.'s  paper  is  "  rot,"  and  I  have  told  him  so  in  plain 
words.  His  choosing  such  a  subject  is  a  piece'  of  great 
conceit.  Why  can't  he  paddle  till  he  has  learnt  to 
swim.  However,  though  a  little  plain  and  honest,  my 
note  is,  I  am  sure,  kind,  and  will  really  be  of  use  to  him 
if  he  will  take  the  advice  I  give.  I,  however,  send  you 
first  the  note  that  you  may  see  it. 

L.'s  letter  is  a  contrast  to  its  fellow.  I  shall  be  glad  to 
see  his  papers.  Have  you  written  to  D.  ?  (I  ask  because 
I  did  in  very  diplomatic  style),  and  will  you  try  H.  ? 

What  is  this  about  raising  the  price  to  2s.  6d.  ? 
Who  in  his  senses  would  give  half-a-crown  for  it  ?  I 
hope  next  Monday,  when  the  British  Museum  opens, 
to  set  to  and  complete  my  paper  for  the  Druid ;  and  in 
the  course  of  next  week  I  shall  send  those  papers  for 
the  Saturday  to  Freeman.  Will  "  Somerleaze,  near 
Glastonbury,"  find  him  ?  Write  and  tell  me.  I  think 
it  very  likely  I  shall  have  a  little  book  out  in  about 
twelve  months. — Affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
September  11,  1862. 

I  trouble  you  with  another  note,  my  dear  Dawkins, 
partly  to  remind  you  of  your  promised  visit  on  Sunday, 
a  pleasure  which  no  excuse  will  prevail  on  me  to  forego  ; 
partly  to  tell  you  that  B.  is  in  a  state  of  hopeful  peni- 
tence, apologises  for  his  paper,  and  promises  amend- 
ment ;  but  more  to  explain  to  you  the  leading  features 
of  a  new  design  which  I  should  wish  you  to  think  over, 
and  give  me  your  opinion  of  when  you  arrive. 

You  know,  perhaps,  that  my  earliest  project  in  the 
department  of  history  was  that  which  Dean  Hook  has 
since  carried  out — a  series  of  lives  of  the  "Archbishops 
of  Canterbury."  The  greatness  of  many  of  the  prelates 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  103 

struck  so  vividly  on  my  imagination  that  it  was  not  till 
I  came  to  closer  quarters  with  the  subject  that  I  per- 
ceived, what  only  the  progress  of  the  work  has  revealed 
to  the  Dean,  the  insignificance  of  others,  and  the  im- 
possibility of  stringing  the  history  of  the  Church  upon 
so  varied  a  collection  of  individuals. 

I  left  Oxford,  therefore,  with  the  full  purpose  of 
becoming  the  historian  of  the  Church  of  England.  Few, 
I  felt,  were  more  fitted,  by  the  historical  tendency,  the 
predominant  feeling  of  reverence,  the  moderation,  even 
the  want  of  logic  or  enthusiasm  in  their  minds,  for  the 
task  of  describing  a  Church  founded  in  the  past,  yet 
capable  of  wondrous  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the 
present,  the  creature  of  repeated  compromises,  essentially 
sober  yet  essentially  illogical.  The  prospect  widened  as 
I  read  and  thought.  On  the  one  hand,  I  could  not 
fetter  down  the  word  "  Church "  to  any  particular 
branch  of  the  Christian  communion  in  England  ;  after 
the  Reformation,  therefore,  all  historical  unity  would 
have  been  gone,  though,  throughout  the  hubbub  of 
warring  sects,  an  ideal  unity  might  still  have  been  sought 
and  found.  On  the  other,  I  could  not  describe  the 
Church  from  the  purely  external  and  formal  point  of 
view  taken  by  the  general  class  of  ecclesiastical  historian  ; 
its  history  was,  with  me,  the  narrative  of  Christian  civilisa- 
tion. And  to  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  this,  it  was 
necessary  to  know  thoroughly  the  civil  history  of  the 
periods  which  I  passed  through  ;  to  investigate  the 
progress  of  thought,  of  religion,  of  liberty,  even  the 
material  progress  of  England.  No  existing  history 
helped  me  ;  rather,  I  have  been  struck  with  the  utter 
blindness  of  all  and  every  one  to  the  real  subjects  which 
they  profess  to  treat — the  national  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  our  country. 

I  should  then  have  had  to  discover  the  History  of 
England,  only  after  my  investigations  to  throw  them 
aside  and  confine  myself  to  a  narrower  subject — a  sub- 
ject too  whose  treatment  after  the  seventeenth  century 
becomes  (artistically)  impossible  and  unhistorical. 


io4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  tell  you  all  this  in  so  great  detail  because  I  fear  a 
charge  of  vacillation  in  announcing  my  purpose  of 
undertaking  the  "  History  of  England."  You  will  see 
how  there  is  no  vacillation  in  the  matter,  but  a  deliberate 
development  and  growth. 

I  won't  trouble  you  with  my  ideas  as  to  the  History 
or  its  treatment.  But  if  you  were  to  change  its  title 
into  that  of  "  A  History  of  the  Developement  of  Christian 
Civilization  in  England,"  you  would  not  do  it  much 
wrong. 

Good-bye,  if  this  seems  too  like  an  essay,  congratulate 
yourself  on  being  spared  an  essay  in  conversation,  a 
talked  essay  instead  of  a  written  one.  I  am  deliberat- 
ing whether  to  preach  next  Sunday,  but  your  dread  of 
"  curates "  and  their  sermons  may  perhaps  induce  me 
to  spare  you. — Good-bye,  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

[In  his  diary  for  September  12  Green  says,  "  Yester- 
day as  I  read  Sismondi,  I  resolved  to  abandon  the  more 
limited  subject  which  I  had  chosen  as  my  theme,  and 
to  become  the  historian  of  England."  He  then  gives 
an  account  of  his  reasons  in  nearly  the  same  words  as 
those  of  the  preceding  letter.  He  then  adds  :  "  With 
a  full  consciousness  of  many  great  deficiences,  I  devote 
myself  to  the  task.  The  greatest  of  them  is,  perhaps, 
a  dislike  for  abstract  thought,  which  would  ever  tempt 
me  to  subordinate  general  tendencies  to  particular 
events  and  principles  to  individuals.  But  two  great 
helps  I  can — and  by  God's  help,  purpose  to  bring  to 
its  execution, — unflinching  labour  and  an  earnest  desire 
for  Truth.  It  has  been  my  greatest  joy  to  see  (as  I 
saw  in  the  case  of  "Dunstan")  that  I  did  not  hesitate  to 
abandon  long-cherished  theories  before  the  call  of  less 
interesting  and  attractive  fact.  I  pray  God,  in  whose 
name  and  to  whose  glory  I  undertake  this  work,  to 
grant  me  in  it,  above  all,  the  earnest  love  and  patient 
toil  after  historical  truth."] 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  105 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
September  24,  1862. 

I  don't  doubt,  my  dear  Dax,  that  you  have  saluted 
me  by  many  not  very  complimentary  epithets  for  my 
long  silence.  Perhaps  my  diary  would  be  my  best 
excuse.  Hughes's  marriage,  my  brother's  visit,  sermon 
writing,  and  miscellanea  occupied  from  Thursday  till 
Sunday.  On  Sunday  night,  on  my  return  from  church, 
it  was  discovered  that  the  house  had  been  broken  into, 
my  cashbox  broken  open,  and^io  abstracted.  With 
the  money  went,  what  I  valued  far  more,  my  letters  to 
and  from  the  dear  friend  who  is  gone.  As  securities 
for  much  larger  sums  than  j£io  went  with  it  I  had  to 
waste  Monday  in  providing  against  further  depreda- 
tions at  the  bank,  and  when  Tuesday  came  I  found  the 
day  was  promised  and  vowed  to  my  brother  and  sister, 
and  spent  it  with  them  at  the  Exhibition.  When  I 
returned  a  dirty  packet  awaited  me, — the  thief,  after 
examining  the  letters,  had  sent  them  back  !  Conceive 
my  delight,  first  at  the  recovery  of  wliat  I  prized  so 
much,  secondly  at  the  revelation  of  the  fellow's  own 
heart.  Of  course  X  knows  he  had  a  motive.  It  is 
quite  marvellous  how  cunning  he  is  in  "  motives."  The 
curious  thing  is  that  he  can  only  discover  bad  motives 
for  every  good  act,  and  does  not  reverse  the  matter  and 
discover  good  ones  for  every  evil  act.  It  is  clear  that 
if  there  is  a  high  probability  for  an  evil  motive  having 
prompted  the  restoration  of  my  letters,  there  is  an 
equally  high  probability  of  a  good  motive  having 
prompted  their  abstraction.  But  then  there  is  the  keen 
delight  of  sneering  at  sentiment,  honour  and  high  feel- 
ing having  been  rechristened  by  gentlemen  of  the 
"  motive  "  school.  Well,  he  is  welcome  to  his  enjoy- 
ment. 

Your  Somerset  house  payments  I  will  now  attend  to. 
On  Monday  I  was  left  with  is.  6d.  in  my  pockets,  and 
could  plead  "  no  assets."  As  to  Durham,  unless  I 


io6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

greatly  mistake,  all  that  has  as  yet  appeared  in  the 
report  of  the  commissioners  appointed  to  inquire  into 
the  state  of  the  university,  advises  a  total  reconstruction 
in  the  secular  system.  Whatever  one's  own  wishes 
might  be,  there  is  not  the  slightest  probability  of  the 
scheme  as  they  propose  it  eventually  passing.  It  stands 
over  at  any  rate  till  Parliament  meets. 

I  doubt  (pardonnez  moi)  your  assertion  about  there 
being  no  book  on  the  general  geology  and  geography  of 
England.  Remember  that  a  rather  popular  and  not  a 
highly  scientific  book  is  what  I  want.  I  am  not  going 
to  write  a  scientific  treatise,  but  a  geographical  preface. 
Is  there  not  a  book  by  Macculloch  ?  Ask  your  co- 
adjutor Avelyn.  Then,  too,  could  you  lend  me  your 
small  geological  map  ?  i.e.  if  you  don't  want  it  at  all. 
I  am  really  rather  bothered  about  this,  as  I  want  to 
commence  at  once.  After  a  chapter  on  the  Geology 
and  Geography  of  England,  its  bearing  on  the  industry, 
character,  and  history  of  ye  people,  I  proceed  to  a  second 
on  "  Prehistoric  Britain,"  from  tumuli,  skulls,  Davis 
and  Thurnam's  Crania  Britannic ~a ,  etc.  Now,  this  is  a 
subject  of  yours,  on  which  you  probably  have  some 
valuable  papers.  Pray  communicate  all  the  data  you  have 
to  me^  your  own  researches  included.  Do  not  mind 
overloading  me  with  references  to  books  and  papers, 
that  is  what  I  want.  My  third  chapter  will  embrace 
from  Cassar  to  Agricola.  My  fourth  an  exhaustive 
sketch  of  Roman  Britain  from  the  second  to  the  fourth 
century.  My  fifth  (the  most  difficult  in  the  book)  on 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  Britain,  the  rise  of 
independent  kingdoms  and  states,  and  the  early  con- 
quests of  the  Saxons.  .  .  . 

Good-bye, — a  shoppy  letter  you  will  say  ;  I  hope  you 
are  happy  and  well,  as  so  good  a  fellow  ought  to  be, 
though  I  feel  disgusted  at  your  knavery  in  re  the  "  Nat. 
Hist,  depart,  of  the  Som.  Arch.  Ass."  as  you  facetiously 
term  it. — Good-bye,  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  107 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
October  16,  1862. 

[An  omitted  passage  refers  to  the  Druid.  I  have 
omitted  various  notes,  going  into  editorial  details,  upon 
that  periodical.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  A.  H.  Clough 
was  one  of  the  contributors.] 

Whatever  comes  to  you  never  let  go  your  ideal. 
I  think  it  is  a  great  thing  and  one  that  "  lifts  one  up  for 
ever,"  to  have  laboured  with  singleness  of  mind  for 
knowledge.  If  I  could  advance  History,  if  you  could 
advance  Science  by  a  single  fact  (it  is  a  (illegible)  and 
can  never  die),  I  am  sure  we  could  both  willingly  lose 
all  thought  of  ourselves,  and  be  content  to  remain 
obscure,  and  it  may  be  poor.  But  knowledge  is  great 
riches.  And  to  live  face  to  face  with  the  revolutions  of 
nature  or  of  man  is  to  be  wealthy  indeed.  I  am  work- 
ing well  at  my  history,  and  if  I  could  photograph  the 
thoughts  of  my  brain,  you  would  see  the  greater  part  of 
the  two  first  chapters.  But  in  setting  on  paper  I  cannot 
help  being  very  slow.  I  see  at  every  sentence  some 
new  and  better  plan  of  arrangement,  some  necessity  for 
doubting  an  old  and  accepted  fact, — or  of  bringing  in 
a  wholly  new  series  of  topics, — that  here,  as  in  life, 
divers  a  sunt  impedimenta ;  it  is  the  very  wealth  of 
materials  which  hinders  my  progress.  However,  I 
begin  with  the  great  empire  of  the  Celt  over  Ireland 
and  Britain  and  Gaul  and  Italy  and  Spain, — then  it  is 
broken  up  by  the  invasion  of  the  Bolg,  pulsing  on  the 
shores  of  Britain, — by  the  growth  of  Druidism, — by  the 
increase  of  wealth  and  civilisation, — by  the  arms  of 
Rome. 

Then  Caesar  strikes  it  down, — but  it  lives  still  in 
Britain  and  Ireland,  and  even  Agricola  when  his  cam- 
paign completes  its  reduction  in  the  first  leaves  it  still 
free  in  the  second.  Will  it  not  revolutionise  our  history, 
to  strive  from  the  Irish  traditions  and  poems  to  recreate 


io8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

those  ages  of  which  nothing  is  known,  to  see  the  Bolg 
coming  in  primeval  time  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Liffey, 
the  Forth,  and  the  Thames  ?  Even  a  failure  will  draw 
attention  and  arouse  history  to  fill  up  the  gap.  If  I 
can  be  nothing  else  I  will  be  the  forlorn  hope  and  help 
to  fill  the  ditch. — Good-bye,  God  bless  you. 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

OXFORD, 

October  27,  1862. 

[Green  was  staying  at  Oxford,  where  his  aunt  died 
on  October  23.] 

MON  CHER  AMI — The  trouble  of  arranging  details 
(a  task  especially  uncongenial  to  me  as  you  know),  of 
seeing  undertakers,  registrars,  and  the  "  grim  train  of 
death  "  must  be  my  apology  for  omitting  to  send  you 
back  or  to  notice  your  paper  on  Battle  Church.  I  must 
say  I  think  the  preface  the  best  part  of  it — that  one 
long  crow  of  triumph  over  folk  "  impudent  as  they  are 
small,  who  know  nothing  of  tracery  or  Parker's  book 
thereupon  "  —a  doo-de-doo-doodle-doo  !  ! 

There  is  a  fellow  here,  "  impudent "  it  may  be,  but 
undoubtedly  small,  who  wishes  to  know  :  i .  Whether 
the  Archaeol.  Society  of  Sussex,  being  one  of  the  best  in 
England,  has  not  embalmed  the  Church  in  some  number 
of  its  Transactions?  2.  What  authority  for  "pointed 
arches  immediately  after  the  landing  of  William "  ? 
Parker's  book  on  "  Dawkinsius  ille  ?  "  3.  Concerning 
that  "  Purbeck  factory,"  why  may  not  the  "  gang  of 
workmen  "  have  made  the  two  fonts  at  their  respective 
localities  rather  than  at  the  isle  of  Purbeck  ?  And  is 
not  the  latter  hypothesis  a  little  more  in  accordance  with 
modern  notions  than  with  ancient  ?  Item  concerning 
the  "  Pilaster  factory." 

(Pace  the  small  impudent  man,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  gather  up  facts  relative  to  this  last  point.  Its 
bearing  on  industrial  progress  in  England  is  most 
important.') 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  109 

4.  In  your  concluding  generalisation  you  say  "  Never 
was  architecture  and  carving  at  a  lower  ebb  in  England 
than  in  the  days  of  the  Stewarts."  These  "  days," 
comments  "  homunculus  impudens,"  would  range 
roughly  over  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
include  Wadham  Chapel  in  the  earlier  period  and  Christ- 
church  Hall  staircase  in  the  latter.  Looking  at  these,  at 
the  Gothic  reaction  under  James  I.  and  Charles  I.,  at 
the  existence  of  Inigo  Jones  and  Whitehall,  and  the 
rather  obstinate  fact  of  the  architecture  of  the  eighteenth 
coming  directly  after  this  abused  architecture  of  the 
seventeenth,  Homunculus  wishes  a  little  reconsideration 
of  this  point. 

I  forward  you  with  it  fragment  a  qu<edam  of  a  paper 
now  in  process  of  printing.  I  have  left  materials 
enough  for  a  second.  Pardon  me  for  having  scribbled 
your  papers  over  with  pencil  marks  ;  I  rewrote  the 
paper  in  the  train  and  had  no  other  writing  materials. 
B.  is  in  a  state  of  Heavenly  tranquillity  and  friend- 
ship, and  has  forgiven  me  for  having  made  his  paper 
Christian.  I  have  prevented  him  from  acting  most 
foolishly  in  one  matter  since  I  have  been  here, — he 
abused  me  but  adopted  my  unpalatable  advice.  Ah 
me  !  isn't  there  a  Providence  in  the  world  which  watches 
over  Bs.  ? 

Good-bye,  remember  me  very  kindly  to  your  mother 
and  believe  me  yours  (Minime  atque  impudentissime], 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE. 
November  4,  1862. 

[F.  D.  Maurice  had  thoughts  at  this  time  of  resigning 
the  Chapel  of  St.  Peter's,  Vere  Street,  in  order  fhat  his 
motives  for  adherence  to  the  Church  of  England  might 
be  beyond  suspicion.  He  was  induced  by  Bishop 
Tait  to  abandon  the  intention.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  re-inclose  Falconer's  letter,  a 
very  frank  and  honest  one.  I  see  no  reason  for 


no  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

supposing  Roberts  aware  of  the  intentions  of  the 
Council,  and  prefer  the  charitable  theory.  Most 
earnestly  do  I  hope  for  your  success — whatever  be  the 
fate  of  our  housekeeping  projects.  I  have  more  than 
myself  to  think  of  now,  you  know.  My  sister  must, 
in  a  year's  time,  live  with  me,  a  fact  which  complicates 
matters.  Yet  I  am  desirous  of  a  settlement  of  some 
sort.  I  see  storms  ahead.  The  rumours  of  Maurice's 
rejection  of  clerical  preferment  have  set  me  thinking- 
thinking.  There  are  clearly  two  errors  to  be  avoided. 
I.  Remaining  in  a  ministry  without  holding  the 
prescribed  doctrines  of  that  ministry.  2.  The  opposite 
one  of  exaggerating  one's  own  variance  of  opinion 
from  the  prescribed  formularies.  And  there  are  two 
great  principles  to  be  kept  in  mind.  I.  To  remain  in 
the  ministry  of  the  Church  of  England  so  long  as  by 
doing  so  one  is  helping  to  broaden  its  sphere  of 
thought.  2.  To  quit  it  the  moment  continuance 
within  it  tends  to  narrow  one's  own. 

I  get  wretched  as  I  think  of  it.  At  the  worst 
indeed  one  does  but  become  a  layman  of  the  Church  of 
England.  But  this — this  owning  one's  start  a  false  one, 
owning  the  failure  of  one's  theories,  owning  that  one's 
teaching  has  not  been  fair  to  the  Church — this  beginning 
again  is  not  all.  I  hope  I  look  a  little  beyond  myself. 
If  the  clergy  are  bound  down  and  the  laity  unbound— 
if  the  Teacher  may  not  seek  the  Truth,  and  the  taught 
may,  if  the  Church  puts  the  Bible  in  the  hand  of  one  as 
a  living  spirit,  in  the  hand  of  the  other  as  a  dead  letter 
— what  is  to  come  of  it  ?  I  love  the  Church  of  England. 
You  who  know  what  my  historic  plans  were  for  it- 
know  this  well.  But  what  is  to  become  of  such  a 
monstrous  system,  such  a  Godless  lie  as  this  ? 

If  they  would  but  let  things  alone  !  I  see  every  day 
the  light  broadening.  I  see  men  like  Ward  letting  in 
new  light,  admitting,  unconsciously,  limits  to  their  old 
dogmatism.  I  could  wait  and  hope,  knowing  Veritas 
prevalebit.  But  Law  must  be  called  in  to  crystallise 
this  embryonic  mass.  Law  must  hedge  in  Truth  and 


II 


CLERICAL  CAREER  in 


the  Conscience.  Essayists  must  be  condemned.  Jowett 
is,  I  hear,  to  be  prosecuted,  Maurice  is  going, — Colenso 
is  to  be,  I  know  not  what. 

I  wait — but  I  think  the  end  is  at  hand. 

"  Who  are  the  Gwythol  ?  "  "  A  tribe,  individuals 
of  which  are  scattered  over  England,  one  being  found  at 
Battle,  Sussex.  Hence  our  old  word  '  wittol '  or  block- 
head, from  their  intellectual  qualities." 

"  Who  are  Gwyddel  ?  "  People  whom  Basil  Jones 
knows  something  about — and  whom  I  have  learnt  some- 
thing about  from  Basil  Jones. 

I  go  down  to  Oxford  again  on  Friday.  The  holiday 
at  Battle  I  still  hope  for,  if  I  may  be  suffered  to  hope. 
Good-bye,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
November  20,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  fear  I  have  been  very  neglectful 
of  you  of  late.  It  sprang  of  my  being  "  over  careful  " 
about  myself.  I  begin  at  last  to  wish  to  "  get  on,"  not 
for  my  own  sake,  Heaven  knows  ;  indeed  I  am  most 
happy  and  comfortable  here.  But,  as  you  know,  there 
are  others  of  whom  I  think  incessantly,  and  whom  my 
promotion  would  enable  me  to  do  more  for.  While  my 
thoughts  were  first  fermenting  came  a  quasi-ofFer  from 
Ridgway  —  my  old  Tutor — just  appointed  to  the 
Principalship  of  the  Training  College  at  Culham,  of  his 
Vice-Principalship, — £200,  rooms  and  grub,  in  all  £300. 
No  position  could  have  been  less  to  my  taste.  Indeed, 
to  leave  London  at  all  would  be  a  sore  trial,  both  in  a 
literary  sense  and  as  parting  me  from  my  dear  little 
ones  here.  However,  I  braced  myself  stoically  up,  and  all 
but  accepted  it — when,  voila,  a  note  from  the  Bishop's 
Chaplain,  Freemantle  —  followed  by  an  interview  in 
which,  as  I  understood  him,  he  offered  me  the  Curacy 
of  Fulham,  under  the  Bishop's  nose,  with  a  distinct 
promise  of  promotion  if  I  did  well.  I  consulted  others, 
and  all  agreed  it  was  a  brilliant  opening,  so  I  definitely 


1 12  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

declined  the  other,  when  this  morning  arrives  a  note 
from  Freemantle  telling  me  of  another  candidate  with 
apparently  quite  as  good  a  chance,  if  not  better.  This 
is  Coxhead  whom  I  think  you  met  once  here — very 
good  fellow  and  very  "  heavy."  I  take  it  for  granted 
that  a  combination  of  these  qualities  will  succeed,  and 
don't  feel  disposed  at  any  rate  to  make  any  push  for  the 
place  (pushing  not  being  in  my  line),  so  I  suppose  the 
result  will  be  I  shall  remain  where  I  am — a  result  not 
at  all  disagreeable.  Still,  all  this  has  broken  in  on  the 
even  tenour  of  my  way,  as  you  may  suppose,  and  has 
been  intensely  disagreeable.  If  I  don't  get  Fulham  I 
shall  remain  here,  doing  far  more  than  I  have  done  as 
a  curate,  but  definitely  relinquishing  all  hope  or  outlook  for 
clerical  preferment,  and  throwing  my  future  wholly  on 
literature.  .  .  . 

Next  (quam  proximo  intervallo]  to  the  pleasure  of 
having  you  here  is  the  pleasure  of  having  A.,  who  has 
entered  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  is  full  of  his  new  profession. 
Somebody  said  that  Burke's  conversation  was  equally 
entertaining  whatever  its  subject,  and  so  it  is  with  A. 
He  is  charming  alike  in  mortgages  and  revivals,  and 
Petronius  and  Mathew  of  Westminster,  and  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  and  the  date  of  the  Civil  Law,  and 
Oxford  scepticism,  and  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  and 
Palaeontology,  and  the  Latin  Grammar,  and  the  Civil 
War  in  America  (to  mention  about  one-tenth  of  the 
topics  ranged  over  in  some  three  hours  last  night),  in  all 
"  nil  tetigit  quod  non  ornavit." *  Of  course  he  equally 
desires  your  settlement  in  town.  —  Believe  me  most 
affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
November  25,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — The  Fulham  affair  has,  through 
a  singular  succession  of  mishaps,  apparently  blown 

1  Johnson's  epitaph  on  Goldsmith  :  misquoted  for  "  nihil  quod  tetigit  non  ornavit." 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  113 

over,  and  I  am  driven  to  remain  (hard  fate  !)  with  the 
little  ones  whom  I  love  best  on  earth.  Do  you  not 
pity  me  ?  Fulham  turns  out  to  be  far  more  eligible 
than  I  had  ventured  to  hope  so  that  there  is  every- 
thing to  vex  me  if  I  choose  to  be  vext,  but  I  don  t. 
And  so  revenons  au  mouton  of  King's  Square  for  a 
year  or  two  more.  An  awful  thing  for  a  "genius" — 
is  it  not  ?  You  defined  "  genius "  when  here  as  a 
peculiar  aptitude  for  a  certain  branch  of  study.  Pardon 
me,  that  is  Talent.  Genius  is  a  much  higher  thing  : 
the  power  of  bending  circumstances  to  our  will.  In 
other  words,  it  is  something  to  have  a  special  aptitude 
for  Stones,  like  you,  or  Dates-cum-facts,  like  me  ;  it  is 
something  more  to  be  able  to  elicit  greatness  and  fame 
out  of  a  Surveyorship  or  a  Curacy. 

Suppose  we  go  in  then  for  Genius,  not  Talent. 

I  have  no  news,  save  news  of  the  weather — for 
the  last  two  or  three  days  has  made  me  a  Bus-meteor- 
ologist in  my  frequent  Fulham  voyages  in  chase  of 
this  Will-o'-the-Wisp  of  a  Cure.  But  as  my  observa- 
tions are  extremely  unscientific,  referring  principally  to 
the  coldness  of  my  fingers  and  blueness  of  my  nose,  I 
forbear  to  trouble  you  with  them. 

My  Incumbent's  sermon  in  the  evening,  he  tells  me, 
was  intended  to  supply  simply  the  deficiencies  of 
mine.  Is  it  not  charming  to  convert  an  Incumbent 
into  an  Editor,  and  his  sermon  into  an  Appendix  ? — I 
feel  quite  proud. — Yours  affectionately, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
December  9,  1862. 

Nothing,  dear  Dax,  could  better  picture  my  languor 
and  physical  depression  during  the  past  week  than 
the  fact  that  I  have  left  your  most  affectionate  note 
without  a  reply.  Simple  as  it  was,  it  gave  me  great 
pleasure  at  a  time  when  my  thoughts  were  very  gloomy 
and  depressed.  The  clouds  have  cleared  away  now, 


1 14  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

but  much  of  the  weakness  continues  ;  and  hovering 
about  is  that  with  me  infallible  sign  of  something 
wrong,  restlessness,  and  a  craving  to  be  out  of  this 
Babel  of  brick  and  mortar  in  some  quiet  little  country 
parsonage. 

I  can  say  however  to  all  this  "  It  cannot  be."  Babel 
must  be  my  home  for  years,  and  one  must  put  a  brave 
heart  on  it  as  thousands  have  done  before  me.  Indeed 
my  present  plans  point  rather  to  a  settlement  in  Babel. 
I  have  some  notion  of  getting  up  a  "  district "  here, 
and  becoming  an  Incumbent.  More,  however,  of  this 
when  I  see  the  matter  a  little  clearer. 

And  now  of  yourself.  It  was  charming  to  hear 
that  the  storm  had  blown  over,  and  your  content  and 
happiness  come  back  again.  Forgive  so  un-news-ey  a 
letter,  and  heap  coals  of  fire  on  my  head  in  your 
next.  In  the  meanwhile  believe  me. — Sincerely  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
December  15,  1862. 

Many  thanks,  dear  Dax,  for  your  speedy  remittance 
which  I  hasten  to  acknowledge,  though  hardly  in 
spirits  for  a  letter.  I  have  just  come  from  Guildhall, 
where  I  have  been  pleading  for  a  boy  who  has  just 
left  our  school  with  the  best  of  characters,  and  within 
six  months  has  robbed  his  employer.  The  magistrate 
was  very  considerate,  and  the  boy  appearing  really  to 
have  been  misled  by  a  fellow-apprentice,  dismissed  him 
with  a  reprimand.  There  were  a  group  of  Pharisees 
at  the  door  as  we  left  the  court,  and  their  comments 
were  pleasant  to  hear,  "  Lucky  you  escaped  transporta- 
tion, my  boy  !  "  "A  few  years  ago  you  would  have 
been  hung  for  that,  young  sir,"  and  the  like.  W. 
was  with  me,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.  "  I  was 
thinking,"  he  said,  "  if  it  had  been  one  of  my  boys 
standing  there  " — and  then  he  paused,  I  never  liked  him 
more. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  115 

Ne  nos  inducas  in  Tentationem — sed  libera  nos  a 
malo — how  we  all  tremble  on  the  verge  of  the  great 
abyss,  held  back  only  by  the  Grace  of  God.  Ne  nos 
inducas — ne  nos  inducas  ! 

It  is  what  I  often  think  of  when  these  dear  little 
ones  here  come  crowding  into  my  arms,  and  their 
white  little  souls  stand  out  in  relief  against  mine.  It 
is  an  awful  thought  that  the  hours  as  they  pass  will 
bring  sin  and  shame  to  the  little  one  who  nestles  to 
one's  breast,  and  an  awful  mystery  that  that  very  sin 
and  taint  seems  needful  for  the  full  development  of 
man — that  the  penitent  scarred  with  traces  of  past 
guilt  is  nobler  and  higher  in  the  scale  of  humanity 
than  the  guileless  child.  What  does  it  all  mean  ? 

But  I  weary  you,  and  cross  perhaps  that  fresh  pure 
pleasure  you  are  just  taking  in  the  love  of  children. 
No,  I  have  no  "  bookish  ways  "  with  children.  Even 
now  you  would  laugh  to  know  the  eagerness  I  feel 
for  the  love  of  the  little  ones  here.  "  Christmas  comes, 
the  time  of  gladness,"  as  the  carol  has  it, — "  gladness  " 
indeed  when  it  brings  all  the  loved  ones  around  me. 
They  all  come  home  this  week  or  next. — Faithfully 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  IV.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
December  30,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — This  will  reach  you  as  the  old 
year  is  passing  away,  and  bring  my  best  wishes  for 
the  New.  They  are  no  formal  wishes  for  you,  dear 
friend,  whom  every  year  makes  an  older,  but  cannot 
make  a  warmer  or  a  surer  one.  It  is  one  of  the  items 
in  my  bill  of  gratitude  to  God  which  the  year  sends  in 
as  it  passes  away,  that  knowing  my  need  of  a  friend 
He  has  given  me  one  so  loyal  and  true. 

I  hope  your  Xmas  has  been  as  happy  as  mine. 
Some  people  in  this  overwrought  age  long  for  the 
simpler  and  less  complex  pleasures  of  a  lower  stage  of 
human  culture  ;  for  my  own  part  I  know  of  one  simple 


n6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

pleasure  that  no  human  advance  can  rob  one  of,  the 
joy  of  little  children.  They  laugh  with  me,  romp 
with  me,  steal  my  watch,  run  away  with  my  sixpences, 
absorb  my  time,  tyrannise  over  all  my  old  bachelor 
habits,  bid  me  "  put  down  my  book,"  and  it  is  put 
down  ;  "  talk,"  and  I  abandon  my  loved  silences ; 
"play,"  and  I  play;  "take  them  out,"  and  I  turn 
sightseer  for  the  first  time  in  the  25th  year  of  my  life. 
And  out  of  all  this  comes  a  happy,  most  happy  Xmas. 

This  year  our  schoolmaster,  having  High  Church 
leanings,  has  taken  the  Christmas  decorations  in  hand. 
I  defy  any  one  to  see  them  and  remain  grave.  The 
ivy  buds  all  over  with  white  roses  which  are  either 
miraculous  or  of  white  paper.  The  parish  is  divided 
on  the  question  ;  the  orthodox  like  as  usual  the 
miraculous  view  ;  the  Neologians  shout  "  paper."  The 
matter  is  likely  to  come  before  the  court  of  Arches, 
when  we  shall  at  last  know  what  we  are  to  believe. 

Another  lovely  controversy  has  been  raging  here  on 
the  Quantity  and  Quality  of  the  consumption  effected 
at  the  Tea-Meeting  or  School  Treat.  Happily  this  has 
been  satisfactorily  settled.  A  little  boy  burst  on  his 
way  home,  and  obliged  us  with  a  post-mortem.  Two 
layers  of  cake  ;  traces  of  watery  action,  supposed  to 
have  been  produced  by  hot  tea  ;  a  layer  of  bread  and 
butter  ;  two  thick  strata  of  seed-cake  ;  traces  of  re- 
newed aqueous  disturbance  ;  a  thin  dark  line  (opinions 
divided,  Orthodox  say  "  tea  grounds,"  the  Neologians 
"  slate-pencil  "  nibbled  while  waiting  for  grub)  ;  alter- 
nations of  seed  and  plum-cake  surmounted  by  four 
tiers  of  bread  and  butter,  and  disturbed  by  the  action 
of  liquor.  A  superficial  deposit  of  a  saccharine  nature 
is  supposed  to  consist  principally  of  "  goodies  "  from 
the  Xmas  tree. 

Our  schoolmaster  was  superb.  He  had  had  a 
quarrel  with  the  Incumbent,  and  was  in  tragic  spirits. 
"  Now  Mr.  G.,"  shouts  the  curate,  "  will  you  start  a 
little  music  for  the  children  ? "  "I  should  infinitely 
prefer,  sir,  to  lie  down  on  the  floor  and  die."  "  Hum, 


ji  CLERICAL  CAREER  117 

but  you  know  that  wouldn't  amuse  the  children  half  as 
much  !  "  "  Sir,  my  heart  is  broken."  "  No  matter 
if  your  voice  is  not."  Risu  solvuntur  irae  atque 
maerores,  and  the  carmen  began. 

Sad  nonsense.  Isn't  it  time  for  happy  nonsense 
this  merry  Christmas  ?  There  are  sad  enough  thoughts 
behind  it.  Thoughts  of  one  who  has  found  other 
peace  than  our  "  Peace  on  Earth."  I  wonder  when 
that  cloud  will  drift  away.  Perhaps  only  when  all 
clouds  drift  away  —  in  the  New  Heaven  and  New 
Earth. — Good-bye.  God  bless  you.  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

Rev.  N.  T.  HUGHES,  LINBY, 
February  23,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAWKINS — My  ride  down  here  so  utterly 
upset  me  that  for  two  or  three  days  I  was  in  the  depths 
of  depression  and  physical  weakness.  And  in  order  to 
meet  this  I  had  to  dose  myself  with  quinine  and  port 
wine,  which  effected  their  purpose  but  of  course  were 
the  very  worst  things  for  my  pleurisy,  which  is  still 
therefore  unsubdued.  Still  I  trust  much  to  the  air, 
and  I  am  able  to  get  out,  and  hope  this  week  will  see 
the  end  of  my  ailment.  I  hope  your  own  vanished  in 
the  air  and  leisure  of  Hailsham. 

The  country  round  here  was  Sherwood  forest,  the 
scene  of  Robin  Hood's  exploits,  and  his  cave  and  hut, 
both  in  the  vicinity,  bring  them  every  day  to  one's 
memory.  The  oak  stands  at  the  entrance  to  Newstead, 
Byron's  place,  which  is  close  by  us.  Beyond,  on  the 
low  surge  of  hills  that  close  the  horizon,  is  the  house 
of  Mary  Chaworth,  his  love.  I  amuse  myself  with 
parallels  between  Byron  and  Robin — the  outlaws  of 
ancient  and  modern  days. 

H.  is  most  kind,  and  as  a  nurse  deserves  a  very  high 
certificate.  He  has  learnt  a  great  deal  these  last  few 
days  in  the  mustard  poultice  line.  His  wife  is  in  town, 


u8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

and  he  mourns  after  her  like  a  dove,  or  a  husband  five 
months  old.  But  he  is  a  right  good  fellow,  and  a  seeker 
after  Truth.  (Pace  the  signer  of  Scientific  Protests.) 

'  Direct  here,  though  I  may  be  soon  in  Town. — Faith- 
fully yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

March  24,  1863. 

[I  omit  the  previous  letter  mentioned  in  the  first 
sentence,  criticising  some  opinions  expressed  by  Prof. 
Dawkins.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  think  if  you  read  my  last  letter 
again,  you  will  see  something  graver  in  it  than  the  irony 
of  its  tone.  Indeed  if  it  be  not  grave  and  earnest  I 
have  nothing  graver,  nothing  more  earnest  to  say  now. 
Pray  read  it  again. 

/see  no  limit  to  this  progress  in  "religion."  It  is 
on  the  very  idea  of  progress  that  my  faith,  my  deep  and 
intense  faith  in  Christianity,  rests.  Like  you  I  see 
other  religions — the  faith  of  the  heathen  or  the  faith  of 
the  Jew — doing  their  part  in  the  education  of  the  human 
race.  And  I  see  the  Race  advancing  beyond  the  faiths 
that  instructed  it,  so  that  at  each  great  advance  of  human 
thought  a  religion  falls  dead  and  vanishes  away.  And  I 
judge  that  this  must  ever  be  a  condition  of  human  pro- 
gress, except  some  religion  appear  which  can  move  for- 
ward with  the  progress  of  man.  There  comes  a  religion 
which  does  this.  Take  your  Gibbon  and  test  what  I 
say.  The  fresh  sons  of  the  Germanic  forests  break  in 
upon  effete  Rome— and  all  perishes  of  Rome  save  this. 
Christianity  assumes  new  forms  and  a  new  life,  and 
moulds  this  chaos  into  the  World  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Think  how  different  was  the  "need"  of  Augustine  and 
the  "  need  "  of  St.  Louis — yet  Christianity  had  where- 
with to  supply  both.  And  then  the  Middle  Ages 
vanish  away,  and  the  World  of  our  day  emerges  from 
the  Reformation,  and  Christianity  takes  new  forms  and 
infuses  a  new  life  into  the  new  phase  of  humanity. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  119 

Think  how  various  were  the  "  needs  "  of  St.  Louis  and 
Luther — yet  Christianity  could  meet  and  satisfy  both. 
And  now  human  thought  makes  each  hour  advances 
such  as  it  has  never  made  before  ;  and  Christianity, 
spiritualised  and  purified  by  the  wider  demands  made 
upon  it,  is  ready  to  meet  and  satisfy  them  all.  Oh,  how 
this  retrospect  over  eighteen  centuries  of  revolution 
brings  out  these  old,  old  words,  "  I  see  that  all  things 
come  to  an  end,  but  Thy  commandment  is  exceeding 
broad  !  "  There  are  many  sides  to  this  thought  which 
may  serve  to  bring  it  closer  home.  Compare  the 
religion  which  is  theoretically  next  in  rank  to  Christianity, 
the  Moslem,  and  see  how  it  utterly  fails  to  meet  the 
progress  of  man.  Or,  again,  see  the  flexibility  and 
adaptability  of  Christianity  in  the  divisions  of  the 
Christian  world,  and  ask  what  a  life  there  must  be  in  the 
faith  that  can  satisfy  and  meet  the  wants  of  the  English- 
man, the  Spaniard,  and  the  Greek.  Or,  again,  think 
what  a  capacity  of  advance  there  must  be  in  a  faith 
which  is  simple  enough  for  the  Sussex  cottager  and  deep 
enough  for  problems  such  as  the  problems  of  to-day.  I 
glance  at  thoughts,  each  big  enough  for  an  essay,  that  I 
may  hurry  on  to  that  view  of  the  progress  which  one 
may  call  the  internal  as  opposed  to  the  external  view. 
Christianity  is  a  religion  of  the  Future.  The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  is  a  succession  of  "  impossible  precepts." 
They  are  all  summed  up  in  a  precept  still  more  im- 
possible :  "  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in 
Heaven  is  perfect."  And  so  it  must  ever  keep  ahead 
of  man.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  our  veriest  instincts 
God  must  ever  be  beyond  us,  beyond  our  power,  our 
knowledge,  our  virtue.  And  it  is  to  that  "  beyond  " 
that  Christianity  points — it  is  thither  it  bids  man 
march.  Hence  life  becomes,  not  the  dead  contented 
indolence  of  the  Moslem,  but  a  vivid  activity.  Think 
of  St.  Paul's  images — the  race,  the  fight — or  of  that 
nobler  passage — the  sum  of  Christian  philosophy — where 
he  pictures  the  growth  "  together "  of  the  Christian 
Church,  of  the  Christian  world,  "  unto  the  measure 


120  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ "   (see  passage 
Eph.  iv.  1 6), 

Yes,  the  Church,  like  its  Head,  groweth  daily  "  in 
wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favour  with  God  and  Man." 
Your  "  doubt,"  "  difficulty,"  "  mess  "  may  ground  you 
the  firmer  in  the  Truth  that  can  thus  meet  and  satisfy 
your  doubts.  And  what  if  this  progress  which  we  see 
in  the  Future  be  visible  in  the  Past  ?  If  Man  seem  but 
an  outcome  of  the  advance  of  the  animal  world,  "  a 
monkey  with  something  non- monkey  about  him," 
what  if  Science  confirms  the  Apostle's  grand  hint  of 
the  unity  of  the  world  about  us  with  our  spiritual 
selves,  "  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
bondage,"  etc.  If  there  are  hints  of  a  purpose  to  be 
wrought  out  in  them  as  it  has  been  wrought  out  in  us  ? 
Well,  it  is  a  grand  thought — little  more  as  yet — but 
one  which  may  widen  for  us  our  conception  of  the 
revelation  in  Christ — the  revelation  of  God's  love  to 
His  children.  "  Is  he,"  said  Paul  of  Abraham,  "  the 
Father  of  the  Jew  only,  is  he  not  also  of  the  Gentile  ?  " 
— and  may  it  not  be  ours  to  say  as  the  breadth  of  God's 
Fatherhood  opens  upon  us,  "  Is  He  the  Father  of  man 
only,  is  He  not  the  *  All-fader  as  our  old  Teuton 
fathers  called  him,  is  He  not  the  Father  of  the  Brute 
also  ?  Forgive  this  rough  scribble,  I  am  in  the  horrors 
of  moving,  and  have  no  time  to  think.  To-morrow  or 
the  next  day  (if  any  sediment  of  me  remains)  I  will 
send  you  Mr.  Phail's  direction  and  the  P.O.O. 

All  is  going  on  well  here.  I  had  an  interview  with 
the  Bishop.  He  was  very  kind  and  confidential^  which 
argues  well  for  a  certain  young  curate  of  my  acquaint- 
ance. Congregation  still  progresses. — Faithfully  and 
hurriedly  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

March  28,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Your  letters,  in  their  frequency  and 
fulness  alike,  serve  only  as  standing  reproaches  of  mine. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  121 

I  write  so  seldom  and  so  briefly  because  I  have  so  little 
to  tell. 

The  church  here  is  filling,  but  my  hopes  of  getting  a 
curate  are  dashed  to  the  ground,  I  fear,  by  the  resolve 
of  the  Curate's  Aid  to  make  no  new  grants  this  year,  in 
consequence  of  the  great  falling  off  in  their  funds. 
This  is  the  more  to  be  regretted  as  my  chest  is  still  so 
weak,  and  the  pleuritic  pain,  which  I  hoped  had  fled  for 
ever,  recurs  now  and  then  with  a  rather  uncomfortable 
pertinacity.  Indeed,  any  great  exertion,  a  walk  to 
Kentish  Town  or  Whitehall  ensures  me  a  return  of  it. 
I  trust  however  much  to  the  coming  summer  and  the 
outing  I  must  get  then, — and  yet  I  hardly  know  how. 

I  am  rather  lonely, — rather  dispirited, — and  will  not 
inflict  further  dulness  on  you. — Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

April  2$,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX —  .  .  .  All  is  going  on  very 
monotonously  here.  The  parsonage  slowly  rises  and 
promises  to  be  as  pretty  as  London  smoke  will  suffer  it. 
A.  is  learning  the  organ  at  Oxford  and  is  already  great 
in  the  pedals.  My  little  Godchild  is  cutting  her  teeth 
without  losing  her  temper, — or  her  health,  a  phenomenon 
in  babyhood.  She  is  making  rapid  progress  towards 
the  recognition  stage  and  will  soon  know  me. 

Managing  this  parish  is  like  walking  on  a  wall 
adorned  with  broken  bottles.  I  am  blandness  itself, 
with  occasional  raps  sharply  put  in  for  impertinent 
occiputs.  They  look  astonished  ;  but  before  they  have 
made  up  their  minds  for  a  row  I  am  bland  and  civil  as 
ever.  Convincing  churchwardens  of  their  real  insig- 
nificance while  remaining  on  "  the  best  possible  terms  " 
with  them  is  a  process  which  varies  the  monotony  of  one's 
life  with  stray  gleams  of  fun.  The  best  fellow  about 
here  is  a  rough  and  ready  "  Tom  Daubeny,"  a  chemist, 
making  heaps  of  tin,  very  busy,  very  blunt  and  a  capital 


122  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

backer.  His  shop  is  the  Club  of  the  neighbourhood, 
and  he  is  equally  useful  at  gathering  or  diffusing  the 
news  one  wants.  Moreover,  he  has  a  notion  of 
"moving  with  the  times," — is  "  unsectarian,"  etc.,  so 
that  one  has  free  play.  Then  there  are  two  "  goodest " 
people  called  Hopleys, — real  gold  but  worked  up  in 
very  old  fashion,  and  incapable  of  being  melted  down. 
They  are  sure  to  go  to  Heaven,  says  everybody,  at 
which  I  rejoice  ;  and  equally  sure,  I  think  to  myself,  to 
meet  Puseyites  there, — at  which  I  smile.  Then  there 
is  a  vehement  and  voluble  gentleman  with  a  slight  im- 
pediment in  his  speech,  for  ever  discoursing  of  "  tem- 
pemomy  schools  "  and  also  "  temporary."  Very  curious 
discoveries,  too,  one  makes.  The  most  polished  gentle- 
man here  I  found  in  a  pork-butcher's  shop  ;  the  most 
learned  scholar  in  my  clerk.  My  clerk's  wife  is  a  fat 
Welshwoman,  and  "  has  liked  you,  sir,  ever  since  you 
pronounced  Machynnlleth  right  in  her  hearing."  She 
knew  the  Gibbestian  family  who  were  small  farmers. 
One  poor  old  soul,  who  is  a-dying,  is  "  Exeter-born  " 
and  talks  real  fresh  countrified  Devon  in  the  midst  of 
this  wilderness  of  Cockneydom. — Good-bye,  dear  Dax, 
believe  me  faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

May  28,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  think  I  have  done  well  in  my 
fight  against  London  air  (?)  for  two  years  and  a  half 
though, — as  it  turns  out,  I  am  better  at  last.  After  an 
illness  —  fever,  weakness,  olla-podrida  of  come-over- 
abilities — which  has  kept  me  sleepless  and  pretty  nearly 
foodless  for  the  last  three  weeks,  I  "  cabbed  (as  con- 
valescent) to  Adams  this  morning.  He  sounded  me  ; 
pronounced  the  pleurisy  "  still  there," — lungs  sound,  at 
least  he  could  discover  no  tubercle,  but  very  delicate. 
Then  he  proceeded  that  a  low  condition  of  health  rendered 
such  lungs  most  susceptible  of  disease.  Whereupon  I 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  123 

stopped  him,  "  Do  you  mean  that  this  low  condition  is 
connected  with  my  present  residence  and  work  ?  "  "I 
do.  You  ought  to  be  in  a  quiet  country  curacy,  or  at  the 
sea-side."  "You  think  if  I  persist  in  staying  I  render 
myself  very  liable  to  disease?"  "I  do."  "Then 
please  write  that  to  me  in  a  note  which  I  may  send  to 
ye  Bishop,  and  I  will  resign  at  once." 

The  Bishop  will  be  furious,  and  justly, — but  that  is 
the  least  of  it.  There  is  this  poor  parish,  my  sister, 
myself  "  meteoros."  I  can't  tell  what  will  come  of  it. 
However,  God  will  provide.  I  feel  that  He  has  in  thus 
breaking  down  my  plans  taken  me  into  His  charge. 

I  spent  a  day  with  D.  a  little  time  since,  who  ad- 
vances in  a  most  odd  fashion.  When  I  saw  him  before 
he  had  given  up  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  but 
believed  implicitly  in  all  the  rest.  Now  Genesis  is 
wholly  absorbed,  but  its  disappearance  has  in  no  wise 
affected  his  faith  in  the  four  remaining  books  of  the 
Pentateuch.  So  gradual  a  rate  of  digestion  will  keep 
the  Apocalypse  for  his  heirs.  He  seems  to  be  really 
getting  on  well  in  the  Chancery  quiddities,  and  perhaps 
he  regards  the  critical  question  as  a  suit,  and  opens 
upon  it  in  a  succession  of  pleas  and  rejoinders. 

You  saw  H.  B.'s  "  first."  I  was  unfeignedly  glad 
and  wrote  so,  warning  him  not  to  "  demane  "  himself  by 
taking  a  Jesus  Donship.  As  he  hasn't  replied,  suppose 
he  is  riled  and  intends  the  descensus  Averni. 

Faithfully  (feebly,  weakly,  dizzily,  mopily,  faintly, 
dreamily,  dully)  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Eoyd  Daw  kins 

RANCORN,  MARGATE, 
June  4,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Behold  my  Patmos,  a  cockney 
Patmos, — but  then  am  I  not  a  cockney  St.  John  ?  This 
little  hamlet  lies  away  from  vulgar  Margate,  whither  I 
journeyed  to-day  to  find  a  congregation  of  the  veriest 
snobs  eye  ever  beheld.  The  cabbies  were  aristocratic 


i24  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

beside  their  passengers.  But  nothing  can  vulgarise  the 
sea.  I  sat  for  two  hours  this  morning  alone  in  a  bay 
beneath  the  chalk  cliffs,  with  a  volume  of  De  Quincey 
in  my  hand,  and  before  me  the  "  great  and  wide  sea," 
dotted  here  and  there  with  the  dusky  red  sails  of  a  fish- 
ing boat,  and  edged  on  the  horizon  with  the  faint  trail 
of  the  distant  packet.  Nothing  can  vulgarise  the  sea, 
not  even  my  writing  about  it. 

I  only  came  yesterday,  and  so  have  no  bulletin  of 
health  to  forward,  save  that  I  am  taking  more  kindly 
to  cod-liver  oil.     Why  cods — so  exquisite  in  all  else — 
should  concentrate  nastiness  in  their  liver  Science  may 
explain. 

Do  you  want  any  tin  ? — my  quarterly  all  has  just 
reached  me  and  I  have  lots,  so  draw. 

I  am  quite  settled  to  give  up  London.  The  laws  of 
health  (Kingsley  auctore)  are  God's  laws,  and  to  defy 
them  is  to  defy  Him. — Very  faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

Write,  write,  write,  write, — I  have  nothing  to  read. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkim 

RANCORN,  MARGATE, 
June  8,  1863. 

My  DEAR  DAX — I  see  from  the  tone  of  your  refer- 
ence to  it  that  you  disapprove  of  my  resolve  to  give  up 
Hoxton.  It  is,  of  course,  a  great  worldly  sacrifice  of 
prospects,  etc.  It  is  a  still  greater  sacrifice  of  the  com- 
forts of  a  settled  home  at  the  very  hour  when  they 
seemed  in  one's  grasp.  But  I  do  not  see  how  I  can 
retain  it  in  defiance  of  Adams's  warnings,  and  my  own 
common  sense.  I  hope  fortune  will  not  set  me  on 
"  500  feet  of  clay," — in  fact,  I  don't  know  that  more  is 
needful  than  that  I  should  take  a  curacy  on  the  out- 
skirts, rather  than  in  the  heart  of  London.  .  .  . — Faith- 
fully yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  125 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

RANCORN,  MARGATE, 
June  9,  1863. 

DEAREST  DAX  —  Your  note  of  Sunday  afternoon 
has  just  reached  me  after  the  despatch  of  my  own. 
Exult  in  having  read  two  books  of  which  I  know 
nothing.  F.  Cerceau  is  utterly  strange  to  me.  Gibbon 
gives  a  fine  account  of  Rienzi  (who  by-the-bye  is  far 
from  being — to  my  mind  —  "the  most  remarkable 
character  in  history "),  and  Bulwer  Lytton's  novel 
Rienzi  is  very  accurate  as  well  as  interesting.  Putting 
aside  his  mere  quackery  I  always  note  as  the  remark- 
able feature  of  the  man  and  the  time  the  curious 
affectation  of  "  Old  Rome,"  and  the  intense  ignorance 
of  all  about  it.  For  the  man  himself  I  possess  the 
merest  contempt.  "  Lord  John,"  said  Sydney  Smith, 
"being  little,  thinks  to  make  himself  big  by  getting 
astride  of  big  questions,"  and  Rienzi  having  fairly  got 
astride  of  his  had  no  notion  "  what  to  do  with  it," 
and  so  assumes  knighthood,  has  a  tumble  in  Con- 
stantine's  bath,  etc., — risu  sohuntur  tabula. 

About  those  Vikings  of  the  twelfth  century  I  own 
my  ignorance.  "Eustace  the  Monk"  one  knows  of, 
but  then  he  was  not  an  Englishman.  I  should  like  to 
read  up  the  matter,  so  give  me  your  authorities  ;  i.e. 
for  the  twelfth  century. 

Since  I  have  been  here  I  have  read  W.  Scott's 
Antiquary,  Jornandes's  Historia  Gothorum,  three  books 
of  the  Odyssey,  and  Midshipman  Easy,  besides  two 
tracts  of  Miss  Marsh.  On  the  whole  I  prefer  the 
"  Middle,"  but  Jornandes  is  very  fine.  His  lies  are 
such  thumpers.  The  Goths  (when  they  were  Scythians) 
rode  ofF  to  war,  and  found  it  so  interesting  that  they 
forgot  their  wives.  Said  wives  got  tired  of  spinning 
and  tried  war  too,  found  it  as  interesting  as  their 
husbands,  conquered  Asia,  and  became  the  well-known 
Amazons  !  This  is  Sir  Creswell  Creswell  on  a  gigantic 


126  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

scale,  a  national  divorce  a  mensa  et  thoro.  Still  as  it 
gets  on  the  book  is  very  interesting.  The  enormous 
moral  weight  of  the  Roman  name  on  these  Goths  when 
they  were  trampling  Rome  under  foot,  is  everywhere 
visible.  Then  it  is  curious  and  instructive  to  look  at 
the  decline  and  fall,  not  like  Gibbon  from  the  inside, 
from  the  Roman  standpoint,  but  from  the  outside, 
from  the  Barbaric  standpoint. 

But  this  is  very  dull  and  bookish,  so  now  for  a  bit 
of  geology.  Sir  C.  Lyell  was  here  the  other  day  to 
see  it.  An  immense  embankment  of  chalk  has  been 
constructed  behind  Margate,  and  as  it  passes  over  a 
marshy  meadow  there  it  has  rolled  away  the  ground  on 
either  side  in  great  huge  cracked  waves  of  soil.  The 

result  is  a  section  like  this    ^-f    >^v  Then 

the  next  thing  I  have  noticed  is  the  wonderful  sapping  of 
the  chalk  cliffs  going  on  here.  Nature  may  work  slowly 
elsewhere,  she  works  fast  enough  here.  For  some 
twenty  feet  from  the  beach  the  water  is  white  with 
suspended  chalk.  The  flints  and  bigger  fragments  as 
the  sea  washes  them  about  are  a  vast  grinding  mill. 
The  flints  here  (I  daresay  all  this  is  very  stale  to  you) 
are  only  in  the  uppermost  chalk,  immediately  beneath 
the  soil. 

I  am  getting  slowly  on  by  dint  of  imbibing  sea  air, 
cream,  and  cod-liver  oil.  But  I  feel  myself  at  bottom 
very  weak  and  ill.  I  doubt  whether  I  shall  have  any 
clerical  duty  during  the  coming  winter,  or  lay  by  at 
Torquay  till  the  spring. — Believe  me,  dearest  Dax, 
faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

MARGATE, 
June  12,  1863. 

DEAR  DAX — That  your  last  letter  isn't  to  be  called 
a  letter  ;  that  you  don't  deserve  an  answer  ;  that  I 
have  nothing  to  write  about,  and  that  if  I  had  it's  a 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  127 

shame  to  waste  it  on  such  a  correspondent, — all  this  is 
so  true  that  I  shall  say  no  more  about  it,  but  leave  it  to 
your  conscience. 

"  Ramsay  is  with  me,  and  is  inspecting  my  work." 
Did  he  inspect  that  letter?  Did  he  write  across  it, 
"  Scamped  ?  " 

No  abuse  of  parsons  !  I  went  to  a  village  church 
yesterday,  and  heard  a  mean-looking  little  man,  with  a 
squeaky  little  voice  "discoorse"  on  Everlasting  Dam- 
nation in  the  cheerful  and  exhilarating  tone  in  which 
parsons  commonly  treat  the  subject.  I  just  kept  up 
my  spirits  with  a  running  fire  of  "  His  Mercy  en- 
dureth  for  ever,"  and  put  down  in  my  prayer-book  a 
few  of  the  miscellaneous  blunders.  "  Hi  "  pronounced 
"  aye."  Adonlzedek  scanned  Ad5nizedek,  etc.  Well, 
the  little  man  (who  to  finish  all  turned  out  to  have  been 
a  converted  Baptist  minister)  joined  me  on  the  cliffs, 
talked  of  "  Ly ell's  last  book,"  proved  a  thorough  Liberal 
about  Subscription,  and  almost  a  Neologian  about  In- 
spiration, blessed  Stanley,  and  cursed  the  Record  ! 

Well,  per  contra,  I  met  an  old  Clerkenwell  curate,  a 
man  of  Cambridge  education  and  some  real  knowledge, 
who  suddenly  accused  me  (on  some  chance  expression) 
of  universalism.  I  pleaded  guilty,  and  objected  to  the 
popular  theory  that  the  devil  gets  very  much  the  best 
of  it,  counting  heads.  "  My  dear  sir,"  was  the  reply, 
"  you  forget  the  Babies  ;  one  half  the  human  race  dies 
in  infancy,  and  is  saved  ;  add  that  to  the  proportion 
of  pious  adults,  and  you  will  see  that  the  majority  of 
human  souls  are  claimed  by  God."  Upon  which  I 
ventured  to  hint  that  the  Gospel  was  strictly  (on  this 
hypothesis)  "  milk  for  babes "  ;  and  that  it  solved  in 
most  satisfactory  manner  the  most  puzzling  feature  on 
the  Bills  of  Mortality,  if  all  this  apparent  waste  of 
babydom  was  only  an  economical  arrangement  for 
keeping  the  theological  balance  even.  No  answer  was 
vouchsafed  to  such  ribaldry,  and  I  was  left  as  a 
heretic. — Faithfully  yours,  dear  Dax, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


128  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
June  19,  1863. 

How  dull  this  letter  is  none  but  you  and  I  and  the 
fire  must  ever  know.  It's  a  great  luxury  to  have  a 
correspondent  with  whom  one  dares  to  be  dull.  The 
fact  is  I  am  suffering  from  a  reaction  of  fatigue  and 
excitement.  Last  week,  what  with  "evenings  out"  of 
the  Seance  nature  and  my  run  to  Oxford,  fagged  me 
awfully.  On  the  Sunday  morning  I  remembered  I  had 
to  preach,  and  was  about  to  run  over  and  devote  an 
hour  and  a  half  to  my  sermon,  when  a  marriage  came. 
My  Incumbent  was  for  once — never  mind.  He  re- 
fused to  take  either  marriage  or  sermon.  So  I  had  to 
preach  with  just  twenty  minutes'  preparation.  But  the 
emergency  did  me  good.  All  my  "  fag "  fell  off  as 
I  entered  the  pulpit,  and  I  preached  one  of  the  best 
sermons  I  have  ever  delivered  here.  Incumbent  seemed 
rather  ashamed,  and  willing  to  make  up,  etc.,  but  this 
will  not  cure  the  dulness  of  brain  and  present  de- 
pression which  followed,  and  has  not  quite  drifted 
away  since.  My  revenge  was  a  very  naughty  one.  I 
have  always  taken  the  whole  of  the  afternoon  surplice 
duty,  and  allowed  him  a  quiet  nap  after  dinner.  But 
now  I  quietly  walked  off  to  Vere  Street,  and  left  him 
to  shift  as  he  could.  When  I  have  done  this  once  or 
twice  we  shall  fall  back  into  the  old  rut  of  courtesy 
and  good  manners  all  the  easier. 

I  went  to  Vere  Street  to  hear  Maurice — and  on 
Sunday  instead  of  listening  to  my  trash  I  desire  that 
you  do  the  same.  The  chapel  is  one  of  the  Georgian 
Order,  a  three-decker  in  the  midst,  a  highly  respectable 
clerk,  and  a  highly  affected  curate.  But  there  up  in 
the  pulpit  is  Maurice  himself,  not  so  venerable,  not  so 
grey  and  aged  as  from  report  I  had  taken  him  to  be, 
by  no  means  (remember  I  am  bad  of  sight)  striking  in 
appearance,  very  quiet,  very  kindly  looking,  very  grave. 
The  sermon  is  on  the  last  three  verses  of  the  Epistle  to 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  129 

the  Romans,  he  fixes  briefly  on  three  words  in  them 
which  contain  the  essence  of  the  Epistle,  "Gospel," 
"Revelation,"  "The  Obedience  of  Faith."  I  won't 
weary  you  with  the  sermon — here  are  a  few  of  its  and 
his  characteristics.  In  manner — very  quiet,  very  even 
—terse — an  intellect  speaking  to  intellects,  but  with 
something  which  raised  it  above  the  mere  intellectual, 
a  subdued  glow  of  feeling  pervading  all,  yet  seen 
perhaps  in  no  one  phrase  or  point — above  all  the  calm1 
quietude  of  intense  belief.  Notable  too  is  the  complete 
inversion  of  our  common  conceptions  in  Maurice's 
mind,  which  it  requires  a  little  reflection  to  observe. 
Thus — religion,  he  says,  is  not  a  doctrine  but  a  "  fact." 
But  what  is  the  "  fact " — the  union  of  the  Human  and 
the  Divine.  In  other  words,  he  so  intensely  realises 
Ideas  that  they  become  "Facts"  —  a  word  which  we 
commonly  restrict  to  something  more  earthly,  tangible, 
visible.  Evidently  he  is  one  of  Coleridge's  "born 
Platonists."  Add  a  nobleness  and  elevation  of  tone 
very  strange  to  the  common  pulpit ;  one  feels  secure 
against  ever  being  asked  to  be  good  on  the  Heaven 
and  sugar -plum  theory,  because  this  man  not  only 
cannot  preach  it,  but  with  all  his  mental  gifts  evidently 
could  never  understand  it.  Above  all,  his  preaching  is 
essentially  Christian  ;  for  it  is  the  setting  forth  of 
Christ.  All  that  stands  between  God  and  man — even 
the  Bible  itself  if  it  be  made  a  barrier — is  put  aside. 
You  are  told  that  in  Christ  there  is  revealed  your 
"  relation  to  God."  God  and  man  are  brought  face 
to  face  as  I  never  heard  them  brought  before. 

He  ended  with  St.  Paul's  ending — the  Ascription 
to  God  All-Wise.  "  Yes,  it  was  well  that  Saul  should 
entrust  this  Gospel  to  no  less  a  charge  than  that  of 
God  Himself.  When  we  think  of  what  we  have  made 
of  that  Gospel,  how  we  have  narrowed  its  breadth  and 
liberty,  how  we  have  degraded  its  nobleness  and  life 
and  energy,  how  we  have  made  it  into  schemes  and 
theories  and  fancies  of  our  own — when  we  think  how 
we  in  our  folly  have  dealt  with  it,  let  us  thank  Paul 

K 


130  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

that  he  left  this  not  in  our  charge  but  in  the  charge  of 
God  the  All-Wise."— Good-bye,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

July  14,  1863. 

DEAR  DAX — My  successor  is  appointed  and  will 
arrive  in  September  ;  my  own  doom  is  almost  fixed 
for  a  curacy  in  Netting  Hill,  my  daily  peregrinations 
to  west  and  east  and  north  and  south  over  this  bother- 
ing business  have  ceased,  and  I  intend  to  take  a  spell 
at  correspondence. 

As  you  haven't  written  for  some  two  months  I  don't 
know  what  subjects  you  are  interested  in.  But  I  take 
it  for  granted  you  are  deeply  interested  in  me.  You 
will  like  to  know  at  any  rate  that  Tait  has  been  most 
kind  to  me  throughout  the  whole  affair ;  above  all, 
that  my  successor  is  Fowle  of  Oriel,  about  the  best 
fellow  one  could  have  lighted  on.  I  really  feel  so 
great  a  reluctance  to  quit  this  post,  and  am  sometimes 
so  inclined  to  despondence  at  being  again  tossed  on 
the  winds  and  waves  of  mere  "  curacy  life,"  that  I 
cling  to  these  little  alleviations  of  it  all.  I  have  been 
tolerably  well  since  I  returned,  but  I  still  feel  "  shaky." 
However,  September  sets  me  free  from  airless  Hoxton. 

On  Saturday  the  bulk  of  the  London  clergy  were 
invited  to  meet  the  Bishop  on  the  lawn  at  Fulham.  I 
always  enjoy  Fulham  ;  nowhere,  I  think,  is  so  much 
beauty  crowded  into  so  small  a  space.  Compton, 
Bishop  in  Dutch  Billy's  time,  was  disappointed  of  the 
archbishopric  and  turned  in  revenge  to  bury  himself  at 
Fulham.  Those  grand  trees,  grand  in  themselves  and 
picturesquely  grouped,  are  the  result  of  this  sulk  of 
Achilles.  I  met  Stanley  there  and  rode  home  with 
him  in  his  hansom.  He  was  never  more  himself,  never 
kinder  or  more  interesting.  He  spoke  of  an  old 
Moslem,  a  servant  of  his  in  his  first  visit  to  Palestine, 
who  hearing  of  his  re -arrival  rushed  out  in  joy  to 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  131 

meet  him.  "  He  came  running  along  the  side  of  the 
opposite  hill,  kissing  his  hand  to  us  frantically.  It  was 
the  very  opposite  of  Shimei."  I  thought  the  last  touch 
very  Stanleian. 

There  is  talk  of  a  great  Declaration  against  Sub- 
scription, headed  by  the  Marquis  of  Westminster, 
Tennyson,  etc.  Amen  ! 

Are  you  a  professor  yet  ?  Or  has  the  world  failed 
to  appreciate  you  as  well  as  me  ?  Eheu,  we  geniuses, — 
people  won't  believe  in  us  before  thirty.  On  the  whole, 
it  is  as  well.  "  Recognised  Genius "  is  expected  to 
talk  ;  and  really  I  am  beginning  to  find  myself  too 
ignorant  to  do  aught  for  a  long  time  but  hold  my 
tongue. 

Good-bye,  dear  Dax,  I  am  impatient  to  hear  about 
you. — Faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

HoXTON, 

August  5,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  omit  apologies, — first  because 
they  are  very  tedious, — secondly  because  I  am  avairo- 
\6yr)To<;.  Your  Pillow  researches  are  interesting, — 
though  the  less  said  about  "  Celtic  zigzags  on  Roman 
vases  and  legionaries  tainted  with  Celtic  fashions "  the 
better.  The  difference  between  a  "  Celt "  in  the 
Roman  epoch  and  a  "  Romano-Briton,"  and  again  between 
a  "  Romano-Briton  "  and  a  "  Roman,"  passes  my  compre- 
hension. Indeed  I  know  no  phrase  so  descriptive  of 
the  course  of  archaeological  discussion  on  this  subject  as 
the  one  you  used,  "  Celtic  zigzag." 

When  is  the  Somersetshire  meeting  ?  And  where  is 
it  ?  I  really  feel  riled  at  J.  not  answering  my  note  to 
him  inquiring  about  these  points ;  and  had  almost 
made  up  my  mind  to  leave  the  thing  alone.  As  it  is, 
I  am  very  hardly  pressed  with  our  Restoration  here,  and 
fear  I  cannot  give  a  paper  at  so  short  a  notice.  Indeed 
it  is  doubtful  when  I  can  get  away. 


132  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

I  was  at  an  odd  meeting  the  other  day, — a  midnight 
meeting  of  girls  from  the  pave.  It  began  at  eleven 
with  tea,  and  ended  at  half-past  two.  Some  1 50  were 
present,  and  few  other  friends  save  myself  and  the  City 
Missionary.  No  scene  could  have  been  more  interest- 
ing, principally  because  it  stripped  away  all  romance 
from  the  matter,  (i)  All  I  have  investigated  looked 
on  it  as  a  matter  of  £  s.  d.  Some  had  been  driven  by 
sheer  want,  others  by  gaiety  and  the  attractions  of  high 
wages,  others  by  the  "  independence "  of  the  life.  I 
did  not  find  one  case  of  seduction, — save  by  similar  girls 
of  their  own  stamp.  (2)  Most  were  willing  to  return 
if  the  £  s.  d.  question  were  settled.  There  were  few 
cases  of  violent  disgust  or  great  remorse.  That  the 
step  upward  seemed  so  little  to  them,  showed  that  the 
step  downwards  had  not  been  great.  We  must  not 
transfer  the  gulf  which  in  our  lives  parts  virtue  from 
vice  to  the  lives  of  the  London  poor.  (3)  All  knew 
the  hymns,  "  Rock  of  Ages,"  etc.  Nearly  all  had  been 
to  Sunday  School.  Religious  teaching  has  reached  them, 
the  "  fundus  "  of  our  population,  and  the  result  proves 
that  means  "  so  successful "  are  fallible  after  all.  A 
fact  at  once  encouraging  and  disheartening. 

Good-bye, — God  bless  you.  Don't  come  up  to 
town  without  seeing  me. — Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

.» 
To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

HoXTON, 

August  14,  1863. 

DEAR  DAX — It  is  proposed,  i.e.  by  myself  and  a 
friend  of  Maurice's,  to  establish  a  "  Church  Liberal 
Association,"  with  these  ends  :  (i)  To  establish  inter- 
course between  and  to  promote  unity  of  action  amongst 
those  clergy  and  laity  who  desire  freedom  of  thought 
and  teaching  in  the  Church  of  England.  (2)  To  bring 
before  the  notice  of  the  clergy  and  encourage  the  study 
of  such  works  of  foreign  theology  as  appear  to  be 
exercising  a  prominent  influence  on  the  progress  of 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  133 

religious  thought  on  the  Continent.  (3)  To  further  the 
free  discussion  of  all  current  questions  of  religious 
interest 

The  first  is  to  provide  a  Liberal  organization  to  meet 
the  orthodox  organization,  answer  Protest  by  Protest, 
Address  by  Address,  etc.  Such  quiet  Progressists  as 
the  Bishop  of  London  need  such  a  support  as  this  in  the 
face  of  arrayed  Conservatism.  Again  it  is  to  destroy 
the  isolation  of  free-thinkers,  to  take  away  half  the 
burthen  of  their  position  by  letting  them  see  there 
are  7000  who  have  never  bowed  the  knee  to  Exeter 
Hall. 

All  the  best  works  of  foreign  theology,  Ewald, 
Baur,  etc.,  are  wholly  unknown  to  England.  The 
retrograde  muddle  of  Henstenberg  and  Keil  is  taken 
for  "  German  Theology."  A  series  of  good  transla- 
tions would  be  missionaries  of  progress  amongst  the 
clergy. 

The  thing  is  to  develope  into  the  establishment  of 
some  organ,  periodical  or  otherwise,  to  be  termed  "  The 
Liberal."  It  is  also  to  provide  for  meetings  to  discuss 
steps  to  be  taken,  etc. 

I  am  sure  you  will  belong  ;  but  let  me  have  it  under 
your  hand  and  seal, — with  the  suggestions  that  occur 
to  you. — Faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

HOXTON, 

September  4,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  been  "  down  again  "  with 
pleurisy, — hence  my  omission  to  send  the  books.  I 
forward  them  now. 

Freeman  has  invited  me  to  his  house.  I  thought  at 
the  opening  of  this  week  I  could  not  have  rallied 
enough  to  come,  but  I  am  much  better  again,  and  hope 
to  see  you  on  Monday. 

By  the  Bishop's  advice  I  shall  take  a  year's  complete 
rest. — Faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


134  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

KING'S  SQUARE, 
December  4,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Didn't  you  write  to  me  somewhen  ? 
and  did  or  did  I  not  answer  you  somewhere  ?  To  a 
tap-root  (not  room)  sort  of  fellow  like  myself  the 
flighty  life  I  have  led  of  late  dislocates  one's  ideas, 
jumbles  memory  up  with  imagination,  and  absorbs 
every  faculty  in  a  never-ending  looking  after  luggage. 
I  saw  Stanley  in  Oxford,  and  had  a  chat  with  him  over 
my  paper  which  he  etc.,  etc.  He  talks  of  the  dangers 
of  "our  style"  (in  a  literary  point  of  view)  which  sent 
me  up  into  the  Seventh  Heaven.  "  I  hardly  know,"  he 
said,  "  how  to  leave  Oxford, — I  have  got  so  wedded  to 
the  place.  It  will  cost  me  much  ;  my  only  comfort  lies 
in  the  recollection  that  it  cost  me  as  much  to  leave  it 
for  Canterbury,  and  again  as  much  to  leave  Canter- 
bury for  it ;  so  I  hope  to  survive."  He  means  to  throw 
open  his  house  for  reunions  of  the  young  Oxford  Liberal 
clergy, — which  is  just  what  is  wanted.  I  suppose  Lord 
Elgin's  death  will  postpone  his  marriage  with  Lady 
Augusta  Bruce. 

I  met  Maurice  the  other  day, — he  told  a  good  Irish 
story,  brought  home  by  his  wife,  who  has  just  been 
visiting  her  mother,  Mrs.  Hare,  in  Connaught.  The 
Bishop  of  Tuam  is  so  zealous  in  proselytising  the 
Roman  Catholics  that  he  forgets  (as  great  men  will) 
his  duties  at  home.  Remembering  the  other  day  that 
he  had  not  held  a  Confirmation  for  eight  years,  he 

sent  to  the  parish  of announcing  his  intention  of 

holding  one  there  the  next  week.  Whether  the  Irish 
rarity  of  the  Ordinance  or  the  Irish  brevity  of  the  notice 
confounded  the  parson,  I  don't  know, — but  he  gave  out 
"  that  the  Bishop  would  perform,  next  Sunday,  in  this 
church,  the  rite  of  circumcision."  Service  ended,  the 
churchwarden  rushed  to  the  door  to  allay  the  horror  of 

the  congregation.     "  Mr.  had  made  a  mistake," 

he  said,  "  the  Bishop  would  visit  them  next  Sunday  to 
hold  a  conversation  !  " 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  135 

Let  me  know  all  about  you,  dear  Dax,  and  believe 
me  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

2  VICTORIA  GARDENS, 

LADBROKE  ROAD,  NOTTING  HILL,  W., 

1863  or  1864. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I 
shall  not  be  able  to  go  with  you  this  year  as  I  had 
hoped — not  from  any  fear  of  being  shot,  for  I  am  a 
thorough  Holsteiner,  but  because  my  uncle's  executors 
have  routed  up  an  old  account  of  some  £300  advanced 
during  my  "  university  career."  As  I  happen  to  be 
poor,  this  will  not  only  swallow  up  the  little  fund 
I  should  have  drawn  on  for  a  few  tours  I  contem- 
plated, but  has  already  sent  me  back  into  clerical 
harness  here  at  Notting  Hill.  I  really  thought  I  had 
done  with  Oxford,  but  it  seems  as  if  Oxford  had  not 
yet  done  with  me. — Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

NOTTING  HILL, 
December  14,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  DAX —  ...  I  am  here  with  Cell,  one 
of  the  finest  fellows  I  ever  met,  full  of  English  fun, 
English  fairness,  and  English  common-sense.  A  man 
who  "  likes  his  morning  sermon  to  be  answered  by  you 
in  the  evening,  because  then  my  people  hear  both  sides." 
What  is  more,  I  have  Kensington  Park  close  by,  and 
Kensington  is  a  real  park.  I  enjoy  it  the  more  for 
the  consciousness  that  as  one  wanders  about  beneath 
the  elms  there  are  three  hundred  thousand  people  west- 
ward of  me,  and  a  couple  of  hundred  thousand  north- 
ward, and  as  many  southward,  and  a  million  and  a 
half  to  the  east  of  me.  All  pleasure  is  contrast ;  and 
so  the  many  Londoners  roar  all  round  me,  and  one 
walks  in  a  country  stillness  beneath  the  Kensington 
Elms. — Affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


136  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Another  letter  to  Freeman  of  about  this  date  shows 
that  his  correspondent  was  already  consulting  him  upon 
an  antiquarian  question  as  to  the  constitution  of  an 
ancient  monastery.  It  is  too  technical  to  be  of  general 
interest. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

NOTTING  HILL, 
January  6,  1864. 

[This  letter  was  written  upon  an  erroneous  report 
that  his  friend  was  intending  a  marriage.  Green,  know- 
ing nothing  of  the  lady,  says  that  he  will  discuss  the 
general  question  without  personal  reference.] 

MY  DEAR  DAWK  INS  —  The  general  question  is 
What  sort  of  wife  ought  you  to  marry  ?  Without  any 
doubt  one  who  can  sympathise  in  your  pursuits,  one 
who  can  help  you  forward  in  your  work.  Without 
doubt  also,  one  who  from  character  and  training  alike 
is  fitted  to  be  a  wife  in  the  highest  sense  ;  one  to  whose 
moral  and  intellectual  qualities  you  could  look  up. 
Love  that  is  to  wear  must  be  founded  in  reverence. 
Without  doubt  also,  one  who  is  fit — as  few  girls  are 
fit — to  be  a  mother  of  your  children.  Not  on  you, 
but  on  her,  will  their  character  and  welfare  depend. 

I  ask  you  to  weigh  earnestly  these  requirements.  .  .  . 
Put  them  straight  before  you.  (i)  Is  the  present 
object  of  your  wishes  fitted  by  mental  power,  by 
education  and  training,  to  be  a  true  wife  to  you  ?  To 
share  your  scientific  toils,  to  take  interest  in  the  things 
in  which  you  are  interested — to  go  heart  and  hand 
with  you  in  your  devotion  to  science, — in  your  seeking 
for  Truth  ?  You  have  put  your  hand  to  the  plough, 
and  cannot  draw  back.  You  have  consecrated  yourself 
to  Science,  to  hours  of  ill-requited  toil,  to  the  search 
for  truth  which  brings  little  of  the  world's  fame  or 
success.  And  you  have  done  well.  It  is  better  to  be 
with  the  few  than  with  the  many  :  better  to  go  alone 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  137 

on  the  Truth-road  than  to  join  the  crowd  on  the  Road 
of  Wealth  and  Self.  But  if  few  will  understand,  will 
appreciate,  will  sympathise,  the  more  need  for  one  at 
home  who  both  can  and  will.  Mere  sentiment,  mere 
affection,  will  never  supply  the  place  of  the  infor- 
mation, the  intelligence,  which  is  needful  for  true 
sympathy.  (2)  Do  you  reverence,  do  you  look  up  to, 
do  you  see  something  higher  and  nobler  than  yourself 
in  your  future  wife  ?  This  is  the  test  of  true  love, 
the  test  that  parts  it  from  mere  passion,  from  mere 
sentiment.  You  have  your  own  soul  troubles,  your 
spiritual  depressions,  your  longings  for  higher  and 
better  things.  The  true  wife  is  the  type  and  symbol 
of  the  holier  and  purer  things  for  which  we  long. 
It  may  be  without  a  word  ever  spoken,  it  may  be  in 
moments  of  deep  and  earnest  communion,  she  "lifts 
him  up  for  ever."  Could  your  future  wife  do  this  for 
you  ?  (3)  Again,  for  weal  or  woe,  you  are  intellectual, 
wrapped  in  intellectual  questions,  interested  in  the 
highest  form  of  genius,  of  poetry,  of  art.  There  can  be 
no  true  marriage  without  a  blending  of  interest.  "  To 
care  for  the  same  things"  is  the  first  and  simplest 
basis  of  union.  To  have  to  be  silent  on  points  which 
stir  and  excite  you  because  they  neither  stir  nor  are 
intelligible  to  your  wife,  is  humiliating  to  her  and  to 
you.  And  forgive  me  for  reminding  you  that  your 
future  course  will  bring  you  more  and  more  into  in- 
tellectual society — that  your  wife  must  share  it.  You 
have  known  such  cases  where  men  sneered  at  other 
men's  wives  ;  how  could  you  face  sneers  at  your  own  ? 
Sympathy,  Reverence,  Intellectual  Equality — these 
are  the  foundations  of  marriage,  as  of  the  nobler  and 
deeper  forms  of  friendship.  It  is  only  about  this  last 
that  I  would  say  a  word  more.  As  you  have  been 
much  to  me,  so  I  too  have  been  somewhat  to  you. 
Look  back  on  our  friendship,  and  ask,  Would  it  have 
been  what  it  is  without  that  vivid  sympathy  in  our 
common  zeal  for  scientific  and  historic  truth  which 
made  us  helpful  to  one  another  ?  Would  it  have  been 


138  LETTERS  OF  J.   R.  GREEN  PART 

what  it  is  if  each  had  not  found  something  in  the 
other  which  raised  and  exalted  him  ?  If  I  had  not 
found  work  and  truthfulness  and  unselfishness  in  you — 
if  you  had  not  found  in  me  (however  I  myself  fall 
short  of  it)  a  striving  to  hold  up  to  you  the  Ideal  of 
work,  of  Devotion  to  Truth,  of  Faith  in  Truth  ?  What 
would  it  have  been  without  that  intellectual  Equality 
that  made  no  side  of  the  pursuits  of  the  one  utterly 
unintelligible  to  the  other  ? 

And  remember,  Friendship  such  as  this  merges  in 
Marriage — it  is  meet  and  right  that  it  is  so.  But 
the  Marriage  must  give  you  in  the  wife  all, — aye,  it 
may  give  a  thousandfold  more  than  all — it  takes  away 
in  the  Friend. — Faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

NOTTING  HILL, 
February  I,  1864. 

[The  next  grave  to  Thackeray's  is  that  of  Charles 
Cheel  (not  "  Cheese  "),  and  is  of  red  brick.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Ubi  terrarum — where  in  the  world 
are  you  ?  is  a  question  that  often  keejis  my  pen  still 
when  it  has  a  humour  to  be  busy  enough.  One  can't 
write  to  a  man  in  space,  and  to  address  to  you  Poste 
Restante  as  I  do  now  is  to  do  this.  Letters  have  a 
relation  to  time,  too,  and  my  enthusiasm  cools  as  it 
contemplates  a  week's  wandering  ere  it  reaches  you. 

I  regret  greatly  my  absence  from  home  when  you 
arrived  here,  as  I  should  have  been  glad  to  hear  about 
your  plans.  Perhaps  they  are  as  nebulous  as  my  own. 

I  have  been  this  Sunday  afternoon  on  pilgrimage  to 
Thackeray's  tomb  at  Kensal  Green  ;  the  great  master 
would  have  smiled  at  the  break-down  of  my  devotion. 
"  You'll  find  it  by  the  great  red  brick  tomb  of  Mr. 
Cheese  "  was  the  direction.  I  found  the  last  resting- 
place  of  the  lamented  Cheese,  red  and  brick  as  they 
had  said  ;  Thackeray's  I  could  not  find.  I  wandered, 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  139 

sick  at  heart,  amongst  sarcophagi  and  mausolea  and 
truncated  columns  and  obelisks  and  urns.  "  Where 
do  you  bury  the  Christians  ? "  I  asked,  as  I  gazed  round 
on  the  symbols  of  paganism.  "  We  buries  the  Dis- 
senters, sir,"  blandly  replied  the  policeman,  "  in  the 
t'other  side  of  the  Cimitiry  !  " — Good-bye,  dear  boy, 
believe  me  ever  faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

NOTTING  HILL, 
February  14,  1864. 

[Dr.  Rowland  Williams  and  Henry  Bristow  Wilson 
had  been  prosecuted  for  heresy  for  their  articles  in 
Essays  and  Reviews.  The  judgment  against  them 
on  certain  points  was  finally  reversed  by  the  Judicial 
Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  on  February  8,  1864.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX —  ...  I  saw  the  Bishop  yesterday 
— he  was  kinder  than  ever.  He  would  not  allow  me 
to  go  down  as  I  wanted  to  a  Bethnal  Green  curacy. 
(Don't  do  as  all  my  friends  do  and  think  me  mad — I 
need  hard,  uninteresting  work  ;  you  don't  know  how 
utterly  I  am  getting  unsettled  in  mind  and  in  soul.} 
Offered  me  an  Under-Inspectorship  of  Schools,  a  good 
thing  in  £  s.  d. ;  and  when  I  declined  it,  promised  to 
find  some  post  for  me  where  I  could  work  by  myself. 

Of  course  you  know  that  Essays  and  Reviews 
have  got  off.  The  sum  of  all  the  decisions  is  very 
well  given  in  the  Times  this  morning  as  this — that 
there  remains  now  in  the  Church  of  England's  formu- 
laries nothing  to  restrain  freedom  of  thought.  Of 
course  different  people  will  view  this  discovery  in 
very  different  ways  ;  very  few  probably  but  will  feel 
dismay  at  an  experiment  which  no  Church  has  tried 
before,  that  of  teaching  without  any  authoritative 
standard  of  doctrine — or  rather  with  standards,  but 
only  such  as  do  not  fix  or  determine  the  questions  of 
the  present  or  of  the  future. 


1 40  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

If  I  do  not  share  these  fears,  if  I  exult  at  the 
destiny  which  God  has  given  to  the  Church  which  I 
love, — it  is  simply  because  I  believe  in  the  Inspiration 
of  the  Church,  in  its  guidance  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Such  a  spirit  I  trace  in  it  in  past  ages,  leading  it  into 
all  truth,  but  enabling  it  to  deal  with  each  problem  as 
it  arises.  The  Creed,  the  Articles  in  a  far  less  degree, 
are  records  of  problems  which  have  thus  arisen,  which 
have  thus  been  met  and  solved. 

Such  an  Indwelling  Spirit,  such  a  guidance,  most 
admit  in  words.  But,  they  ask,  where  are  we  to  find 
its  voice  ?  Not  surely  in  the  decision  of  Churches,  for 
they  vary.  On  which  side  of  their  controversies  are 
we  to  look  for  the  Spirit  of  God  ?  But  is  not  this  to 
forget  that  the  Spirit  dwells  in  the  Church,  not  in 
churches,  that  its  voice  is  the  voice  of  Christendom, 
not  of  this  or  that  part  of  it  ? 

Such  a  general  voice  of  the  Church  we  do  find,  I 
think,  in  that  general  Christian  public  opinion  which 
however  vague  is  none  the  less*  powerful.  Slavery  is  one 
instance  where  this  "  public  opinion  "  of  Christendom  is 
felt  as  a  power.  More  and  more  as  the  conscience  of 
the  world  becomes  enlightened  slavery  is  felt  to  be 
impossible.  It  is  hard  to  prove  it  wrong,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  feel  it  right.  The  sanctity  of  monogamy 
is  another  instance. 

That  these  "  voices  of  the  Church  "  do  not  point  in 
a  doctrinal  direction, — but  in  directions  moral,  social, 
political,  intellectual,  is  a  fact  well  worthy  noting. 
Another  notable  fact  is  the  extreme  slowness  with  which 
"  Christian  opinion  "  forms  itself — how  many  ages  it 
required  ere  serfdom  became  an  acknowledged  wrong 
— for  instance.  The  history  of  the  Church  is  the 
record  of  its  education  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  No 
wonder  then  that  we  are  in  some  respects  in  a  period  of 
suspense  now  that  we  see  in  part  and  prophesy  in  part ! 

Forgive  these  unconnected  thoughts  on  a  great 
subject,  and  believe  me  faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  141 

To  W.  Eoyd  Dawkins 

NOTTING  HILL, 
March  15,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  feel  that,  free  as  I  am  now 
from  clerical  duty,  I  shall  find  it  impossible  to  visit 
you  at  Chichester.  The  new  district  hangs  on  hand, 
and  drags  wearily  on  from  week  to  week.  After  all, 
it  is  very  likely  to  fall  through  for  want  of  funds. 

My  chief  object  in  taking  such  a  charge  is  simply 
to  become  intelligible  again.  Preaching  implies  some 
common  understanding  between  preacher  and  preachee 
— without  this  it  may  be  fine  oratory  but  not  preaching. 
As  you  know,  to  be  what  men  call  a  "preacher"  is 
not  one  of  my  ambitions  ;  but  to  be  a  clergyman  at  all 
requires  that  one  should  speak  to  the  people,  and  I 
feel  that  unless  in  some  way  this  "  speaking  "  of  mine 
becomes  more  real  than  it  has  been,  becomes  intelligible 
to  those  whom  I  address,  it  will  be  impossible  for  me 
to  speak  at  all,  to  remain  a  clergyman  at  all. 

Thinking  over  it  quietly  I  see  many  reasons  why  I 
do  not  "  speak "  now.  One,  the  most  important  of 
all,  I  pass  by.  Next  to  it  comes  that  want  of  "  popular 
fibre"  which  leaves  me  little  sympathy  with  men  in 
the  mass.  I  love  Jack,  Tom,  and  Harry,  can  feel  with 
and  speak  to  them.  I  cannot  love  or  feel  with  men  as 
men.  A  crowded  church  full  of  upturned  faces  is  a 
mere  solitude  to  me.  A  little  group  of  people  I 
know  rouses  all  my  energy  and  fire.  What  I  did  in 
Hoxton,  I  did  because  I  knew  my  people — why  I  failed 
here  is  because  I  did  not  know  them.  If  I  succeed 
again  in  the  East  it  will  be  because  dock  labourers 
and  costermongers  are  not  mere  "  faces  in  pews " 
to  me. 

I  don't  doubt  about  this — I  do  about  the  other  diffi- 
culty. "  Drift  is  a  bad  basis  for  speaking  to  men  about 
great  verities.  And  yet  "  drift  "  one  must.  Still  even 
here  there  is  a  greater  chance.  A  "respectable  congrega- 
tion "  has  its  formula  of  faith  ;  if  yours  doesn't  square 


i42  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

with  it  you  are  practically  unintelligible.     Costermongers 
have  at  least  no  formulas. 

I  rushed  Oxford -ward  on  Tuesday  to  vote  for 
Jowett,  but  paired  at  Paddington  with  a  man  who  had 
come  forty  miles  to  vote  against  him.  The  "  majority 
of  72"  is  in  reality  a  protest  against  the  judgment  of 
the  Privy  Council.  Another  protest  has  just  been 
sent  for  my  signature  with  Pusey  and  Miller's  names 
appended.  Meetings  of  the  Evangelical  London  clergy 
are  being  held,  and  a  panic  seems  spreading.  Even  the 
Record  has  to  strive  to  lull  its  readers'  apprehensions. 
At  the  first  meeting  it  was  gravely  proposed  that  all 
the  Evangelical  clergy  should  resign  their  livings  !  We 
have  yet  to  see  whither  all  this  will  tend.  At  present 
the  breadth  of  the  Church  is  brought  sharply  out  against 
the  narrowness  of  the  clergy.  They  do  not  even  repre- 
sent the  Church.  Wha.t  then  do  they  represent  ?  Not 
the  educated  laity — not  the  intelligence  of  England — 
but  its  unintelligence.  Surely  a  very  serious  matter  ; 
for  is  not  this  just  the  position  of  continental  Romanism, 
and  is  a  Romanism  possible  without  Infallibility,  without 
Unity,  without  a  Head  ? 

Freeman  at  Oxford  protested  against  the  "  separate 
action  of  the  clergy "  in  this  matter.  The  High 
Church  party  do  not  feel  this,  but  a  large  section  of  the 
moderate  Evangelicals  do.  So  promote  by  all  means 
Lay  action  in  these  matters.  An  address  expressing  the 
approval  by  men  of  science  of  the  liberty  granted  by 
the  recent  judgment  to  the  Church  would  be  invaluable 
just  now.  I  was  glad  to  see  your  name  in  the  Colenso 
list.  Good-bye. — Believe  me  as  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

ST.  PETER'S  PARSONAGE,  STEPNEY, 
April  1864. 

MY  DEAR  BOY — I  am  pinned  here  as  Mission  Curate 
(or  English  Nigger),  and  shall  find  no  opportunity  of 


II  CLHK1UAJL   CAKi^K  143 

visiting  Chichester,  Dean  Hook,  or  yourself.  I  am 
not  playing  "  blackguard,"  nor  hero,  nor  runaway.  I 
am  simply  a  common-place  fellow,  busy  with  mothers' 
meetings,  tract  distributing,  and  the  other  "  feminini- 
ties "  of  clerical  life. 

I  am  up  to  my  elbows  in  work,  and  must  write  no 
more.  But  come  and  see  me  here  (and  forget  to  blow 
me  up). — Good-bye.  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

ST.  PETER'S,  STEPNEY, 
Afril  1 8,  1864. 

DEAR  DAX — I  am  not  a  pig.  I  am  a.  Missionary 
Curate.  I  could  not  come  to  you,  because  I  was  hastily 
summoned  to  the  cure  of  5000  costermongers  and 
dock  labourers.  I  cannot  write  for  Jones,  because  my 
books  and  papers  (the  few  left)  are  "  floating  at  their 
own  sweet  will "  between  Netting  Hill  and  Stepney  ; 
because  even  were  they  here  I  am  elbow -deep  in 
services — sick-visiting,  mothers'  meetings,  poor  relief, 
and  the  100,000  etceteras  of  a  new  mission  district. 

Ergo — Giso  must  go  into  type.  Jones  must  be  a 
good  boy  and  wait.  Dax  must  eschew  Billingsgate  ; 
and  I  am  not  a  pig,  but  a  mission  curate. 

I  dine  with  Macmillan  some  evening  this  week  to 
talk  over  something  or  other.  Dickenson  is  to  intro- 
duce me  to  Hardy  at  the  Rolls  Office,  and  has  written 
most  civilly  to  him  about  me.  Tell  Dean  Hook  to 
read  my  Dunstan,  and  amend  his  next  edition  of  that 
estimable  prelate. — Yours  ever,  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK. 

[(Sir)  Thomas  DufFus  Hardy  (1804-1878)  was  at  this 
time  deputy -keeper  of  the  Record  Office.  He  edited 
the  Monument  a  Hisforica,w\thzn  introduction,  in  1848. 


i44  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Benjamin  Thorpe  (1782-1870)  published  the  Diplo- 
ma tarium  Anglicum  JEvi  Anglo -S ax onici  in  1865. 
Freeman  had  reviewed  it  in  the  Saturday  Review. 
John  Allen  Giles  (1808-1884)  edited  a  number  of 
old  works  upon  English  Church  history.  Lord  Romilly 
was  at  this  time  Master  of  the  Rolls.  James  Craigie 
Robertson  (1813-1882)  was  Canon  of  Canterbury, 
and  edited  Materials  for  the  History  of  Archbishop 
Thomas  Becket  (1875-1882)  ;  and  Stubbs  was  at  this 
time  librarian  at  Lambeth.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  have  just  come  from  Hardy 
—the  most  genial  and  kind  of  men,  surely — and  have 
made  arrangements  about  my  proposal  to  Master  of 
Rolls,  etc.  As  you  wished  I  did  not  speak  of  your 
review,  but  Hardy  did — that  is  to  say,  he  spoke  with 
purpose  of  my  writing  to  you  about  a  passage  in  it 
which  he  seems  to  feel  keenly.  Thorpe,  from  what 
Hardy  tells  me  and  what  Stubbs  told  me  before,  is 
simply  a  very  dishonest  old  man,  and  the  Rolls  people 
have  behaved  on  the  whole  singularly  well  to  him.  In 
fact  it  was  to  Hardy  he  owed  the  sight  of  those  trans- 
cripts from  which  (without  even  looking  at  the  original 
charters)  he  has  made  up  his  Diplomatarium,  in  the 
preface  of  which  he  makes  his  last  attack  on  him  ! 
Hardy's  message  (forgive  this  preface)  is  about  the 
"  copying  of  Petrie's  text."  The  Monumenta,  you 
know,  was  in  print  two  years  before  its  publication  ; 
and  Thorpe  had  free  access  to  it.  In  the  notes  to 
Florence  he  quotes  it  by  the  name  Corpus  Historicum, 
which  it  was  to  have  borne  ;  but  which  in  the  after 
publication  was  changed  into  its  present  one.  And 
really  I  believe  there  is  no  doubt  about  the  fact  of  the 
copying,  any  more  than  about  Giles's  doing  the  same 
sort  of  low  thing.  A  man  who  could  act  as  Thorpe 
acted  about  the  Chronicle  deserved  to  be  "  snubbed  "  if 
ever  man  did.  I  am  quite  sure  you  did  not  mean  to 
hurt  Hardy  ;  but  the  way  you  put  it  reads  like  a  point- 
blank  contradiction,  and  evidently  does  hurt  him. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  145 

He  told  me  a  long  story  about  the  S.  Thomas 
scheme.  Giles  stands  in  the  way.  He  is  getting  old. 
He  is  poor.  He  says  he  has  spent  all  his  money  and 
most  of  his  time  on  this  work,  and  that  it  is  only  now 
bringing  him  in  a  little  money.  The  appearance  of  a 
Rolls  edition  would  sweep  away  this  little.  He  would 
complain  to  the  Treasury,  and  the  Treasury  have  already 
snubbed  the  Rolls  savagely  for  "  reprinting  things 
printed," — and  by  a  minute  have  forbidden  any  "dis- 
couragement of  private  enterprise."  Romilly  says  this 
minute  must  be  observed,  and  Hardy  is  thus  rendered 
helpless  in  the  matter.  Were  it  not  so,  he  said  frankly, 
he  would  give  me  the  charge  of  it  at  once.  Do  you 
know  your  old  friend  Robertson  has  (or  rather  an 
obscure  friend  of  his  has)  disinterred  William  of 
Canterbury's  Life  of  Thomas  at  Winchester  ?  Robert- 
son is  to  print  all  the  important  things  (not  in  the 
Fragments  of  Giles)  in  the  Archxologia  Cantiana. 
Stubbs  is  to  hear  from  Robertson,  and  I  have  begged 
him  on  bended  knees  as  beseemeth  so  mighty  a  matter 
that  if  the  Canon  doesn't  want  it  himself  he  will  let  me 
have  it.  I  think  the  great  Librarian  will  do  it, — the 
hope  colouring  the  thought  perhaps. 

After  all  I  haven't  told  you  what  I  am  going  to 
propose  vice  Thomae  per  Egidium  suppressi.  Hardy 
advises  giving  the  Rolls  a  choice, — so  I  shall  propose  ( i ) 
Diceto, — that  "  Series  Caussas  "  whatever  it  is,  is  the 
one  unprinted  thing  in  the  Thomas  row  ;  (2)  Dunstan, 
i.e.  the  MS.  life  by  Malmesbury,  Bridferth,  and  the 
rest  of  the  Biographies.  (3)  Malmesbury's  Lives  by 
themselves, — Dunstan,  Wolstan,  (Aldhelm  is  I  fear  being 
printed  as  the  fifth  book  of  the  Gesta  Pontiff  Patricius 
and  Benignus  and  Indractus, — the  last  three  being  of 
little  good  save  for  a  talk  about  Glastonbyrig. 

Either  of  these  would  make  a  good  volume  I  think 
— but  let  me  hear  your  verdict.  I  know  you  will  fume 
at  my  heavy  dose  of  "  William  the  Librarian." 

I  ought  to  have  thanked  you  for  your  Reviews,  but 
as  it  was  my  last  letter  was  (as  we  used  to  sing  in  Hall) 

L 


146  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

a  "  Gratiarum  actio."  Kingsley's  is  simply  perfect, — 
fair,  I  mean,  to  the  really  good  points  in  the  man  as  well 
as  smashing  on  the  bad  ones.  It  is,  too,  the  most 
thoroughly  amusing  review  of  yours  I  have  ever  read. 
Hardy's  I  don't  like  so  well.  You  are  always  hard  on 
Malmesbury — many  of  his  misarrangements  are  simply 
the  result,  I  think,  of  his  constant  tinkering  and  revision 
of  his  work,  and  his  story,  quarrel  with  it  as  one  may, 
has  an  interest  which  Huntingdon  for  instance  is 
utterly  without.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Gesta 
Regum  to  the  end  of  the  Novella  one  is  often  tempted 
to  be  angry  but  never  to  stop.  And  then  as  to  the 
Chronicle  (or  as  I  persist  in  calling  them  the  Chronicles) 
surely  it  does  "  die  out  from  sheer  exhaustion."  There 
has  always  seemed  to  me  a  strange  pathos  in  those 
broken  entries  at  the  close  of  the  Peterborough  Chronicle, 
— the  only  one  that  lingered  on.  As  to  the  "  great  prose 
bits,"  I  am  quite  at  one  with  you, — nothing  is  greater 
I  think  than  the  Conqueror's  character  and  the  Stephen- 
Anarchy.  But  I  can't  worship  a  Chronicle  or  a  set  of 
them  which  when  I  look  for  Dunstan  leave  me  face 
to  face  with  a  name  and  a  date.  If  the  Canterbury 
Chronicle  were  swept  away  we  shouldn't  know  that  Dun- 
stan was  big  at  all.  I  was  surprised  too  at  your  silence 
about  a  part  of  the  preface  which  struck  me  much,  the 
"  Poitevin  Literature  "  part.  I  remember  saying  to  you 
when  I  read  it  that  I  thought  it  very  spirited  and 
suggestive.  I  am  afraid  that  unhappy  "  Chronicle  " 
lured  you  away  from  it.  In  general  I  think  the  book 
is  a  great  book  as  such  books  go, — the  greatest  of  its 
sort,  bibliographically,  ever  done  ;  and  I  don't  think 
this  is  the  impression  your  review  leaves. 

You  see  I  have  already  donned  Rolls'  livery,  and  do 
suit  and  service  to  my  masters !  Here  is  a  funny  fact 
by  way  of  propitiation.  Camden,  in  his  Britain, 
speaking  of  Tavistock  says  "  here  were  Lectures  of  our 
old  mother-tongue, — I  mean  the  Saxon  language  con- 
tinued down  to  the  last  age  lest,  that  which  hath  now 
happened,  the  knowledge  of  it  should  be  quite  lost." 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  147 

This  was  in  Tavistock  Abbey — he  gives  no  authority, — 
but  Camden  is  not  a  man  to  speak  at  random.  Do  you 
know  whence  it  comes? — Believe  me,  dear  Freeman, 
yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

What  is  old  Parker's  address  ?     I  want  to  write  to 
him  about  an  Oxford  City  MS.,  a  "  Liber  rubeus." 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK, 
May  13,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Ubi  terrarum?  Where  in  the 
world  are  you  ?  Behold  above  where  I  have  found  rest 
in  rooms  overlooking  Victoria  Park,  the  prettiest  of  the 
London  ditto,  as  it  is  the  most  unknown.  I  delight  in 
torturing  my  West  End  friends  with  descriptions  of  its 
ornamental  grounds,  its  flower-beds,  its  lakes,  its  Chinese 
pagoda,  its  fountain,  its  perambulators,  its  nurse-girls, 
its  dirty  boys.  Come  and  see  it,  and  me.  Come  on  a 
Saturday  and  spend  Sunday,  oh  heathen  and  geologist. 
I  will  promise,  since  it  bores  you,  not  to  talk  parochialia, 
though  I  am  very  parochial  just  now. 

My  life  has  been  so  parochial  that  to  exclude 
parochialia,  is,  you  see,  to  have  nothing  to  write  about. 
So  good-bye,  do  come  and  see  a  fellow ! — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

Diary 

Tuesday,  June  22,  1864. 

Morning  at  Provident  Fund  ;  afternoon  with  a  new 
district  visitor,  Mrs.  Nottidge,  in  Parish.  Worked 
through  the  evening  at  my  paper  on  "The  Dictum." 
I  find  the  perplexed  chronology  so  muddled  by  Lingard, 
given  accurately  enough  in  Coote.  Worked  especially 
on  the  London  history  of  the  time  in  De  Antiquis 
Legibus.  This  should  be  studied  in  connection  with 


148  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

that  of  the  French  towns,  especially  those  in  Gascony, 
where  Earl  Simon's  policy  seems  to  have  been  secretly 
directed  to  their  republican  establishment.  ...  A 
history  of  the  English  People  is  greatly  wanted.  .  .  . 

June  23. — The  Times  gives  a  session  of  Convocation, 
and  the  "  Synodical  Condemnation "  by  the  Upper 
House  (4  to  3,  Bps.  of  London  and  Lincoln  in  the 
minority)  of  Essays  and  Reviews — a  condemnation  the 
more  notable  for  the  existence  of  three  protesting 
bishops  than  of  four  damnatory. 

Read  and  noted  Lavale's  Histoire  des  Fran$ais.  .  .  . 
Read  also  the  "War  of  the  Grand  Alliance"  in  Sismondi. 
The  deepening  gloom  around  Lewis  wants  a  poetic  not 
a  philosophic  historian,  or  rather,  there  are  times  when 
poetic  insight  is  the  truest  philosophy  of  history  ;  and 
Michelet  here  and  there  (for  great  crises  and  epochs  of 
silent  decay)  is  worth  more  than  Sismondi. 

June  24. — Worked  at  the  battle  of  Evesham  and 
the  events  immediately  preceding  it  nearly  the  whole 
of  this  rainy  day,  with  the  exception  of  a  raid  on  my 
parish.  I  felt  what  I  so  often  feel  when  a  subject 
presses  upon  and  opens  up  before  me,  that  sense  of 
oppression  from  crowding  thoughts  and  suggestions, 
which  made  me  at  last  rise  in  the  very  midst  of  a 
sentence  and  fly  to  H. 

Our  talk  was  more  interesting  than  ever,  but  the 
pace  of  his  chat  is  too  fugitive  in  grace  and  beauty  for 
a  pen  like  mine. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
June  30,  1864. 

[Dr.  Stubbs  was  at  this  time  vicar  of  Navestock, 
Essex.] 

DEAR  OLD  BOY — I  was  knocked  up  with  Sunday 
work,  and  took  refuge  for  a  few  days  with  Stubbs. 
Your  letter  awaited  me  on  my  return  from  Navestock. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  149 

Life  has  turned  out  such  a  mad  whirl  in  my  own 
case  that  I  feel  a  sympathy  with  the  utter  madness 
of  your  own  late  existence.  ...  It  seems  to  me  (I  am 
old  at  twenty-six)  that  there  is  very  little  worth  the 
longing  for  in  life  but  a  bonnie  wee  wife  and  crowing 
bairns. 

I  saw  Dean  Hook  the  other  day  at  Stanley's  ;  very 
sleepy,  very  dull,  very  good-natured.  He  spoke  of  you 
"  as  a  very  nice  fellow,"  and  Stubbs  is  curious  to  know 
whether  you  have  converted  him  to  a  belief  in  "  flint- 
folk,"  which  might  explain  his  belief  in  "  Liberals." 
Freeman  passed  through  town  the  other  day.  I  told  him 
Somerset  could  now  claim  the  earliest  Beast  in  existence, 
which  greatly  gratified  him.  He  sent  me  a  ticket  for 
the  Architectural,  and  I  heard  his  paper  on  "  Swiss 
Romanesque,"  which  began  :  "  During  the  time  with 
which  this  paper  deals  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
Switzerland  at  all,  but  Italy,  Burgundy,  and  Swabia," — 
an  observation  followed  by  the  intellectual  collapse  of 
three-fourths  of  the  members  present. 

My  Mission  is  going  on  very  well,  but  money  is  the 
great  difficulty.  I  want  a  bell,  a  curtain,  and  half  a 
hundred  other  things,  but  want  them  I  must.  I  am 
hard  at  work  at  my  paper  for  the  Archaeological  Insti- 
tute.— Good-bye,  dear  old  boy,  faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK. 

[In  July  Green  attended  an  archaeological  meeting 
at  Warwick,  and  read  the  paper  upon  "  The  Ban  of 
Kenilworth."  Charles  Henry  Hartshorne  (i 80 2- 1865), 
rector  of  Holdenby,  Northamptonshire,  was  author  of 
many  archaeological  writings.  See  Diet.  Nat.  Eiog. 
"  Peonnum,"  the  site  of  a  battle  in  which  Cenwalh 
defeated  the  Welsh,  was  identified  by  Guest  with  Pen 
Selwood  in  Somerset.  "  Giso  "  refers  to  a  paper  upon 
"  Bishop  Giso  and  Earl  Harold."] 


1 50  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — "Dear  Gossip,"  I  might  have 
said,  for  I  quite  acknowledge  your  "  god-fatherhood  " 
in  the  Warwick  matter.  A  very  plucky  thing  it  was 
to  promise  and  vow  for  so  erratic  a  chiel  as  I,  and 
uncommonly  nervous  it  made  me.  One  doesn't  mind 
smashing  oneself,  but  it's  an  awkward  thing  to  com- 
promise one's  sponsors.  The  whole  affair  was  very 
good  fun.  I  had  no  time  here,  immersed  as  I  am  in 
tracts  and  mothers'  meetings,  to  do  anything  but  work 
at  Ris hanger  and  the  like  till  the  last  week.  Then  I 
ran  down  to  the  Rolls  Office.  Burt  was  kind  enough, 
but  sneered  at  "  the  Chroniclers,"  and  didn't  see  that  I 
had  left  myself  any  time  to  get  much  from  the  "  original 
authorities,"  which  in  Record  dialect  means  "  Records." 
I  didn't  dare  tell  him  the  worst  of  the  matter,  namely 
that  I  had  never  seen  a  "  Roll,"  or  read  a  MS.  in  my 
life.  So  I  took  my  kicking  quietly,  and  plunged  into 
"  Patent,"  and  "  Close,"  and  "  Originalia,"  and  "  Royal 
Letters,"  hoping  that  I  should  make  something  of  them, 
and  did.  Burt  however  took  a  hopeless  view  of  all 
when  I  appeared  at  Warwick,  and  put  me  on  the  list 
for  the  first  evening,  when  no  swell  would  be  present 
to  "find  me  out."  The  end  of  it  you  know — Burt 
and  the  Rolls  men  ate  humble  pie,  and  begged  to 
print  the  paper  ;  and  I  returned  having  vindicated  the 
"  Chroniclers !  " 

Of  course,  bore  as  it  is,  one  must  work  at  the 
"  Rolls  "  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Burt  and  Harts- 
horne  school  forget  that  these  may  supplement  and 
correct  history,  but  that  they  never  can  be  history.  And 
the  mere  study  of  them  without  some  side-knowledge 
leaves  such  a  man  as  Hartshorne  open  to  glorious 
blunders.  He  spoke  of  a  "  Bishop  of  Chester "  in 
1266  !  "  What !  "  said  Beresford  Hope,  but  was  stupe- 
fied to  find  "  it  was  so  in  the  Rolls."  Now  in  the 
Rolls  there  was  a  chance  of  mistaking  it,  but  in  all 
the  Chronicles  it  was  plainly  enough  Ex-cestri<e.  I  will 
send  you  the  paper  if  you  would  like  to  see  it. 

"  Leofric  "  is  on  this  wise.     There  are  in  Langebek's 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER 

Collection  of  Danish  Historians  two  lives  of  Siward  of 
the  twelfth  century.  Both  tell  of  a  like  encounter  with 
a  "  Draco."  May  not  the  Guy  story  have  been  a  trans- 
fer of  this  to  Leofric,  or  the  story  have  run  of  both  ? 
a  thing  you  see  little  better  or  brighter  than  I.  b.  I.'s 
Dena-Gau. 

I  have  seen  very  little  of  these  meetings,  but  it 
struck  me  they  try  to  do  too  much.  Warwick  and  its 
surroundings  were  quite  enough  to  work  out.  Fancy 
there  being  no  paper  or  preachment  on  the  Earls  of 
Warwick.  What  would  Robert  de  Meulan  have  said 
if  he  had  taken  his  guinea  Ticket  ?  The  only  thing 
attended  to  in  St.  Mary's  and  the  Beauchamp  Chapel 
was  the  stained  glass.  A  few  entries  from  the  Records 
were  all  we  heard  about  Warwick  or  Kenilworth  Castles. 
In  fact  there  was  a  great  deal  of  "  pottering  about  "  and 
"  admiring  pretty  views,"  and  very  little,  real  work. 

As  to  Peonnum,  I  don't  like  talking  random  about 
Guest,  and  I  will  read  his  paper  again  ere  I  say  a  word 
about  it.  But  I  remember  three  years  ago  not  agree- 
ing with  him  in  his  conclusions  about  the  Conquest  oi 
Somerset.  "  Giso "  will  come  out  in  the  Somerset 
Transactions.  I  have  no  copy  of  it. 

I  have  thrown  over  that  project  of  Macmillan — the 
French  History.  Dawkins  says  I  am  a  "  quixotic  fool," 
but  I  cant  do  mere  book-making.  My  line  and  calling 
is  to  English  history,  and  I  have  just  begun  the  History 
of  the  Great  Charter ',  John's  reign,  and  Henry  III. ;  the 
last  instalment  of  the  Opus  Magnum  I  mean  for  my 
life-work.  It  is  very  bumptious  ;  but  I  really  feel  in  a 
puzzle-headed  way  that  I  can  do  this,  and  it  would  be 
a  glorious  thing  done.  The  close  I  have  already  partly 
done  in  the  Dictum  paper.  This  is  mere  "  ego-talk," 
but  you  always  make  me  talk  "  ego." 

Dax  swears  he  won't  go  to  such  a  hole  as  Burnham, 
but  he  will  come  if  I  do  ;  and  I  can't  prevail  on  myself 
to  forsake  my  first  love.  If  Stubbs  comes — come  I 
will.  Anyhow,  I  should  like  to  spend  a  few  days  with 
you  ;  for  I  am  weary,  weary  of  hot  dusty  lanes  and 


152  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

fetid  courts  and  "fever  cases"  and  "district  visitors" 
and  "infant  schools"  and  the  thousand  other  bothers 
that  Mission  Curate  flesh  is  heir  to. 

I  have  sent  for  the  Gentleman,  and  reserve  my  com- 
ments till  I  have  something  to  comment  on. 

Good-bye.  Kindly  remember  me  to  Mrs.  Freeman 
and  all  at  Somerleaze. — Yours  faithfully, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

A  note  of  this  date  gives  the  plan  of  his  book.  It 
is  to  be  called  "  England  under  Foreign  Kings,  or  (what 
the  book  is  in  reality  England  and  the  Great  Charter  : 
a  history  of  the  final  formation  of  the  English  people, 
and  the  final  settlement  of  English  liberty  and  the 
English  Constitution  ;  in  three  volumes.  I.  From  the 
Accession  of  Henry  I.  to  the  Complete  Establishment 
of  the  Angevin  Empire.  II.  The  Angevin  Empire  to 
its  Final  Fall  in  1204.  III.  The  Charter  and  the 
Fight  for  it  to  1265." 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
July  29,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — My  letters  have  all  been  waiting 
for  answers  till  my  return  from  Warwick.  I  only 
spent  two  days  with  the  Institute,  as  I  am  bothered 
with  an  infinity  of  things  here  and  could  not  feel  com- 
fortable away.  My  paper  made  a  sensation  and  placed 
me  among  the  swells — a  thing  I  care  less  and  less  about 
as  I  more  and  more  discover  what  a  false  pretence 
antiquarian  swelldom  is.  On  Monday  I  renounce 
Macmillan's  scheme  for  a  History  of  France  (a  piece  of 
bookmaking  I  ought  never  to  have  entertained),  and 
begin  my  History  of  the  Great  Charter  (in  reality  the 
last  instalment  of  my  Opus  Magnum,  which  must  come 
into  the  world  as  a  baby  does  head  first  if  it  is  to  be 
read,  I  fear). 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  153 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  I  long  that,  if  it  could  be 
done  without  injury  to  your  real  future  and  fame,  you 
should  settle  in  town.  People  here  are  kind,  but  they 
cannot  share  my  crochets  as  you  do,  or  understand  my 
"  quixotisms,"  which  are  really  the  only  part  of  me 
worth  understanding.  Something  you  wot  of,  while  it 
can  never  satisfy  one's  thirst  for  love,  cuts  one  off  from 
any  other  mode  of  satisfying  it,  and  leaves  one  a  lonely, 
moody  fellow.  My  good  humour  is  going.  I  am 
impatient,  fretful,  and  a  bore  to  everybody.  And 
something,  which  I  know  I  must  resist  like  grim 
death,  is  constantly  bidding  me  isolate  myself  among 
my  books,  and  leave  the  world  to  shift  as  it  will. 
Everything  seems  slipping  from  under  me  —  faith, 
doctrine,  all  becoming  unreal.  Men  talk  of  me  as  a 
"  rising  "  clergyman,  and  little  know  how  near  Deism 
I  am  drifting — usque  quo !  And  meanwhile  I  fling 
myself  into  mothers'  meetings,  and  the  exact  dates  of 
Royal  writs.  —  God  bless  you,  old  boy,  affectionately 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

[1864-5.] 

I  shall  be  curious  to  see  your  review  of  Palgrave. 
I  have  only  cut  open  the  volumes  here  and  there.  It 
seems  amazingly  unequal.  It  has,  in  fact,  all  the 
merits  and  demerits  of  a  chronicler.  Sir  Francis 
writes  like  a  man  who  had  lived  in  the  times  he  was 
writing  about,  but  he  moves  with  the  crowd  and  never 
climbs  a  step  to  get  a  general  effect.  His  philosophical 
part  seems  great  twaddle.  I  was  surprised  to  find  so 
little  new  information  about  London,  Scotland,  and 
one  or  two  other  specialities  of  Palgrave.  And  of 
course  a  history  of  Normandy  and  England  with 
Hastings  practically  omitted,  is  like  Hamlet  with 
Hamlet's  part  left  out. 


154  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 


To  E.  A,  Freeman 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK, 
(1865). 

[The  Rev.  Sir  George  William  Cox  was  an  old  friend 
of  Freeman  and  Bishop  Colenso,  whose  first  volumes 
on  the  Pentateuch  appeared  in  1862.  I  do  not  know 
what  was  the  proposal  in  question.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Many  thanks  for  Cox's  note 
and  your  own.  To  use  his  rather  Zulu  phrase  I  have 
at  once  "  tabooed  "  the  matter,  not  because  of  worldly 
prospects,  or  even  from  affection  to  my  Plantagenet 
diggings,  but  because  I  think  I  can  do  more  good  for 
Liberalism  by  staying  at  home.  If  I  hadn't  known  the 
origin  of  this  "  Natal  Emigration  for  Liberals  "  scheme 
I  should  have  credited  it  to  the  craft  of  "  Samuel  Oxon." 
It  is  like  the  Liberia  scheme  of  President  Lincoln,  and 
one  cannot  forget  that  it  was  just  the  impossibility  of 
getting  rid  of  the  nigger  which  made  him  "  irrepres- 
sible." If  Mordecai  will  but  sit  at  the  gate  he  will  see 
Haman  swing  at  last. 

I  have  just  come  from  Colenso,  having  listened  to 
the  plan  of  the  new  volume  in  the  press  with  hazy 
results  as  far  as  knowledge  is  concerned,  save  a  general 
impression  that  the  Hebrew  religion  was  but  a  form  of 
Baal-worship,  and  that  the  round  towers  of  Ireland  are 
symbols  of  an  old  Phallic  worship  there.  I  am  afraid 
you  will  be  as  doubtful  of  the  last  fact  and  as  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  its  connection  with  the  former  as 
I  am. 

My  own  scepticism  extends  equally  to  Hetero-  and 
Ortho-dox.  I  agree  with  Colenso  and  his  lot  as  to  the 
destructive  part ;  but  when  he  conies  to  reconstruction, 
he  seems  to  me  little  more  historical  than  his  great 
inventor,  Samuel  himself.  Isn't  it  better  to  do  with 
the  Hebrew  what  we  have  to  do  with  all  the  other 
national  origines,  and  read  the  early  traditions  of  the 
Jew  as  one  reads  the  early  traditions  of  the  Goth  ?  I 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  155 

own  I  think  Jornandes  is  the  more  hopeful  subject 
for  reconstruction  of  the  two.  But  I  don't  see  the 
necessity  for  reconstruction  in  either  case.  I  always 
respected  the  slow,  sceptical  boy  at  school,  who  when 
tempted  "  will  you  guess,"  replied  firmly,  "  No  ;  give 
it  up." 

When  will  the  Shepton  meeting  be  ?  and  are  you  at 
Somerleaze  in  September  ?— Believe  me,  yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  write  in  the  hope  that  you 
are  returned  from  Dutch-land,  and  again  treading 
your  own  Somersetshire  acres.  If  it  be  so  I  should 
greatly  like  to  come  and  spend  a  little  time  with  you 
before  the  Archaeological  at  Shepton.  Nobody  is  in 
Town,  of  course,  but  still  with  this  heat  above,  around, 
and  beneath,  one  manages  to  find  a  great  number  of 
cross,  hot,  angry  non-existences  about  the  streets,  and 
I  feel  that  my  own  temper  won't  stand  the  contact 
much  longer.  So  if  you  have  an  empty  coal-scuttle 
or  other  cubiculum,  whistle  and  I  come. 

I  suppose  you  and  Stubbs  parted  en  route.  He 
seemed  to  wish  to  see  all  but  the  very  things  you 
were  going  in  for  ;  so  I  predicted  a  Lot-and-Abram 
parting  in  which  he  would  descend  into  the  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  of  Hanover,  and  you  would  cleave  to 
the  Hanse-towns.  .  .  . 

Have  you  seen  the  Fortnightly  with  Merivale's 
(Herman)  demolition  of  the  Paston  Letters  ?  Also  a 
paper  on  "  Black  Death  "  which  my  informant  (a  fluent 
"  general  literature "  fellow)  told  me  showed  quite 
clearly  that  "  two-thirds  of  the  people  have  died,  you 
know,  and  the  third  left  were  all  Flemings " — which 
settles  all  the  "  Anglo-Saxon  Forefathers' "  talk  for 
ever,  and  accounts  (with  the  heat)  for  my  present  in- 
tense desire  for  a  glass  of  beer,  which  forces  me  to 


156  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

conclude   with   kind  remembrances   to   Mrs.    Freeman 
though  she  didnt  see  the  Hippopotamus  ! — Good-bye, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
1865. 

DEAREST    DAX  —  Sick  —  ill  —  suicidal  —  blank  — 
ignorant — can't    come  —  can't    write    anything  —  will 
promise    a    history  of  Jack  the  Giant   Killer   for   the 
next  meeting,  if  held   at   a   decent   place. — Good-bye. 
Yours  faithfully,  GONE  TO  POT. 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
September  10,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  OLD  BOY — I  have  been  wretched  and  ill, 
but  am  better  now  in  body  and  mind.  You  I  suppose 
are  deep  in  secretary's  work,  which  they  assured  me  at 
Warwick  to  mean  "  the  making  everybody  happy." 
I  find  the  task  very  easy  with  everybody  save  myself. 
How  in  the  world  do  people  bear  with  my  whims  and 
fancies  ?  That  kind  fellow  Freeman  writes  quietly  to 
say,  "  Well,  if  you  can't  come  now,  at  any  rate  come 
some  day." 

Rabelais  gave  a  description  of  The  Island  of  Queen 
Whims.  I  don't  think  the  natives  are  people  likely 
to  get  on  in  this  world,  poor  devils. 

Did  you  see  the  Times  calculation  that  the  chances 
against  a  curate's  getting  a  living  are  1 9  to  i  ? — Yours 
faithfully,  T\FTH  OF  AN  INCUMBENT. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

WELLS, 
September  28,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  DAWKINS  —  Your  letter  finds  me  at 
Freeman's,  and  Freeman  has  not  the  "  Materials,"  etc., 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  157 

but  I  don't  think  it  matters  much.  The  matter,  as 
you  probably  know,  is  in  this  wise.  There  were 
rumours  of  a  purpose  on  Augustus's  part  of  invasion 
which  ended  merely  in  his  establishment  of  customs 
duties  in  the  trade  between  Gaul  and  Britain.  The 
articles  mentioned  were  probably  the  first  items  of  this 
custom-house  list  which  Strabo  had  seen.  The  duty 
was  levied,  as  he  says,  on  both  imports  and  exports, 
but  I  take  the  ivory  and  glass  (certainly  the  first)  to 
have  been  imports  into  Britain.  Probably  the  ivory 
came  from  that  famous  route  from  Marseilles  over 
Central  France  to  Britain,  Marseilles  being  one  of  the 
entrepots  of  the  trade  from  India  by  Alexandria. 
There  is  at  any  rate  nothing  in  Strabo's  words  to  show 
that  "  ivory  was  in  Britain,"  if  you  mean  that  it  was 
found  there.  He  is  clearly  copying  the  general  list  of 
customs-paying  articles  which  would  of  course  make  no 
distinction.  I  think  Diodorus  gives  the  principal  ex- 
ports from  Britain,  but  no  ivory.  Strabo  adds  that 
this  was  wise  of  Augustus,  for  the  expense  of  the 
smallest  garrison  would  have  swallowed  up  whatever 
revenue  the  island  would  yield  had  he  occupied  it,  and 
besides  there  •  would  have  been  constant  risk  had 
violence  been  used  in  its  subjugation. 

I  hope  this  is  what  you  want,  but  without  Strabo  to 
look  at  I  speak  of  course  vaguely.  I  am  delighted  to 
hear  you  are  on  the  brink  of  fame.  Tristram  has 
mentioned  you  in  his  book  on  the  Holy  Land.  But 
that  is  little  to  the  Magnum  Opus  of  your  "  Twin- 
Wisdoms,"  as  the  Germans  would  say.  Really  I  shall 
clap  hands  at  least  as  heartily  as  the  world. 

Forgive  the  dinner  episode— I  know  that  I  have 
never  attached  a  right  English  importance  to  that 
great  Rite — still  I  have  a  conscience,  and  it  smites.  I 
forgot  all  about  this  particular  sin,  but  I  confiteor — mea 
culpa — mea  culpa.  Freeman  has  just  come  in,  and  he 
has  no  doubt  about  the  impossibility  of  assigning  the 
articles  to  Britain  or  any  country  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  If  you  print,  beware  of  your  Greek,  the 


158  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

passage  is  full  of  blunders,  but  that  is  probably  haste 
on  S.'s  part.  I  fancy  if  you  are  near  the  British 
Museum  it  might  be  as  well  to  refer  to  Sir  G.  C. 
Lewis's  book,  which  has  a  lot  about  this  and  other 
passages,  but  whether  to  your  purpose  I  know  not.— 
Believe  me,  dear  Dax,  yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

Don't  be  cross,  old  boy,  and  write  like  a  Me- 
gatherium next  time. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
October  6,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  am  so  greatly  disappointed  in 
not  hearing  from  you  that  /  must  write  to  you  again. 
I  can't  believe  that  you  mean  to  drop  me  altogether 
after  so  long  a  friendship.  One  has  so  few  real  friends 
in  the  world,  so  few  who  would  really  care  six  months 
afterwards  whether  one  was  alive  or  dead  !  I  think  I 
feel  this  more  as  I  live  longer,  and  get  "  to  know  and 
be  known  by  "  more  and  more.  I  care  for  their  know- 
ledge and  acquaintance  less  and  less  every  day.  I  cling 
every  day  the  more  strongly  to  the  one  or  two  in  this 
world  who  would  open  their  doors  to  me  if  all  the 
world  turned  their  backs. 

Trevor  Owen  spends  Friday  i3th  night  with  me. 
Come  and  spend  it  too,  if  not  do  write. — Write  angrily 
if  you  will  to  yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W \  Boyd  Dawkins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
October  9,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  just  come  in  (8  P.M.),  and 
don't  know  whether  this  will  reach  you  before  you 
start  on  Monday.  I  cant  come  to  your  dinner,  because 
Monday  and  Tuesday  are  both  blocked  days  by  mothers' 
meetings  and  penny  banks  ;  but  I  look  greatly  forward 
to  seeing  you  on  Friday. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  159 

I  can't  tell  you  how  glad  I  was  to  get  your  note  and 
see  what  a  fool  I  had  been. 

The  Carucate — "  the  plough  land,"  as  it  is  better 
styled — like  the  Hyde  and  all  old  English  local  measure- 
ments, varied  in  different  parts  of  the  country  and 
under  different  circumstances.  It  may  mean  180,  100, 
or  60  acres  with  equal  propriety.  Strictly  it  is  "  land 
for  one  plough  through  a  year  "  ;  but  this  varied  accord- 
ing to  the  system  of  cultivation  and  the  physical  condi- 
tions of  the  country,  etc. 

What  on  earth  could  make  my  hairs  stand  on  end  ? 
They  are  too  accustomed  to  me  to  be  shocked  at  any- 
body else. — Good-bye,  dear  old  boy. 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
November  17,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Why,  when  all  the  world  cometh 
out  to  meet  me,  bringeth  Dax  no  congratulations  ? 
Doesn't  he  read  the  Times  ?  Is  he  ignorant  that 
A.  C.  T.  has  recognised  the  merits  of  his  faithful  curate 
and  has  crowned  him  Incumbent.  My  Dax,  with  all 
your  bones,  your  poetry,  and  your  flirtations,  there  are 
huge  fields  of  knowledge  yet  to  be  explored  by  thee. 
In  plain  English,  I  am  Incumbent  of  St.  Philip's,  Stepney, 
which  the  work  of  Blomfield  here  has  made  the  "  crack  " 
parish  of  this  end  of  Town.  There  is  a  good  church, 
a  fine  choir,  a  capital  parsonage,  and  good  schools — 
16,000  people,  of  whom  6000  are  cut  off  to  form  a 
mission  district.  Two  curates  work  with  me  at  the 
church,  two  more  are  in  charge  of  the  Mission.  There 
is  an  Institute,  Church  Association,  and  what  not.  The 
nominal  stipend  is  ^300,  but  various  deductions  reduce 
it  to  two-thirds  of  that  amount ;  but  I  hope  to  get  part 
of  my  burthens  borne  by  other  shoulders. 

Trevor  Owen  expects  to  see  me  "  before  the  end  of 
the  next  ten  years  Pope  of  Rome,  or  something  even 


160  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

higher  than  that " — the  latter  clause,  I  suppose,  means 
"  dead." 

I  long   to  see  thee   and  show  thee    my  Kingdom 
Come. — Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

33  APPROACH  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK. 

[George  Frederick  Pardon  ( 1 824-1 884)  was  a  prolific 
journalist.  See  Diet.  Nat.  Biog^\ 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Pity  me  !  Though  I  write 
from  the  road  at  whose  name  you  scoff  I  arn  under 
sentence  of  Transportation  ;  my  books  in  boxes  or  lying 
in  wild  heaps  about  the  floor,  I  looking  out  for  new 
lodgings.  I  have  just  cleared  a  bit  of  table  to  reply  to 
you,  lest  I  should  be  set  down  at  Somerleaze  as  one 
dumb  or  barbarous. 

Tait  is  wonderful,  but  then  Bishops  are  wonderful. 
Burnet,  for  instance,  having  got  Bonner  safe  in  the 
Tower  points  out  his  "  bloody  and  savage  nature  "  as 
shown  in  letters  even  there.  "  He  invoked  the  Devil 
on  those  who  sent  him  not  Pears  "  ;  or,  stript  of  Refor- 
mation-colour, he  (Bonner)  writing  to  the  Lechmeres 
for  a  basket  of  fruit  adds,  "  which  if  between  you  all 
you  send  not,  then  will  I  say,  as  my  chaplain  Messer 
to  his  stumbling  horse,  '  A  diabolo — ai  tutti  diaboli !  ' 
Don't  add  this  to  your  paper  on  the  "  Mythical  and 
Romantic."  Would  C.  Lewis  like  a  paper  on  "  Bloody 
Bonner"  read  backwards? 

Did  I  ever  tell  you  that  certain  London  parishes  still 
receive  £12  per  annum  for  "  fagots  to  burn  heretics  "  ? 
There  is  yet  a  chance  for  Cox.  He  wished  to  come 
and  fire  away  at  my  place — supposing  I  had  a  church, 
but  I  have  none  (not  even  as  Tait  would  say — "not 
even  a  Chapter-House  ").  My  70  or  80  dock-labourers 
would  hardly  suit  his  views,  I  think.  What  a  wonder- 
fully good  fellow  he  is — if  he  is  the  same  in  flesh  and 
blood  as  in  ink  and  paper ! 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  161 

Lo  !  between  writing  this  and  that  I  have  found  me 
lodging,  partly  attracted  by  a  desire  to  study  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  house  in  which  I  purpose  settling.  He 
is  one  Pardon — the  "  Captain  Crawley  "  of  Handbook 
to  Billiards ',  the  editor  of  the  Boys'  Own  Book ;  in  fact, 
that  odd  beast  I  have  long  wished  to  study,  a 

"LITERARY  MAN." 

But  what  tin  the  fellows  get — £50  for  a  shilling  hand- 
book to  London,  written  in  less  than  a  fortnight ;  ^80 
for  ditto  of  the  Exhibition,  written  in  still  less  time  ; 
£50  and  a  half  profit  for  the  Billiard  Book,  already  in 
a  third  edition.  Ai  me  !  ai  me !  if  one  could  only 
worship  the  golden  calf! 

I  can  do  nothing  in  the  Rolls  line  till  I  see  the  MSS. 
at  the  British  Museum,  which  I  shall  be  able  to  do 
Monday  next. — Believe  me,  dear  Freeman,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

VICTORIA  PARK, 
December  5,  1865. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  want  you  to  manage  for  me  a 
rather  delicate  and  important  matter.  There  has  been 
for  some  time  talk  among  the  Liberal  clergy  of  London 
of  the  starting  of  some  organ  of  Liberal  religious 
opinion  —  not  of  any  sect  of  Liberals,  such  as  the 
Spectator  represents  —  but  covering  the  whole  field  of 
Liberal  thought. 

We  held  a  preliminary  meeting  the  other  day  at 
F.'s  house,  and  resolved  on  the  general  plan  of  such  a 
paper. 

(1)  That  it  should  be  a  daily  paper,  in  form  about 
the  size  of  the  Spectator — on  the  same  plan  as  to  news 
as  the    Guardian  —  but  with  a  greater  proportion  of 
original  matter,  for  which  space  might  be  obtained  by 
the  suppression  of  -purely  ecclesiastical  news. 

(2)  That  it  should  touch  on  all  topics  of  the  day — 

M 


1 62  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

political,  social,  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  —  but  from  a 
liberally  religious  point  of  view. 

(3)  That  on  topics  where  a  definite  line  of  opinion 
was  essential  a  large  space  and  latitude  should  be  given 
to  the   Correspondence,  so   that  those  of  opposite  or 
divergent    sentiments    might    fairly    appeal    to   public 
sympathy  without  compromising  the  apparent  consist- 
ency of  the  paper. 

(4)  That  while  serving  to  illustrate  the  essential  unity 
amidst  all   divergencies  of  Liberal   Church  opinion   in 
England,  it  should  also  represent  its  unity  with  Liberal 
opinion   abroad.      Correspondence  to   be   sought   from 
Germany,  America,  France,  Italy,  for  this  purpose. 

Jowett  will  help  and  Stanley,  but  we  shall  principally 
rely  on  the  rising  talent  of  the  universities. 

I  want  you  to  talk  this  over,  not  as  a  definite  but 
as  a  tentative  scheme,  with  Daldy  ;  see  what  he  thinks 
of  it,  whether  his  house  would  be  likely  to  undertake 
it,  and  if  so  on  what  sort  of  terms.  Let  me  hear  by 
Monday  at  latest,  and  believe  me  in  haste. — Yours  very 
affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

9  PRINCES  TERRACE, 
BONNER'S  ROAD,  VICTORIA  PARK. 

[The  Rev.  Harry  Jones  (1823-1890),  a  popular 
London  clergyman,  published  The  Regular  Swiss  Round 
in  1865,  which  was  reviewed  by  Freeman  in  the  Satur- 
day. The  "  bears  "  are  those  at  Berne.  The  C.  C.  C. 
is  the  "Curates'  Clerical  Club."  Robert  Maguire 
(1826-1890)  was  at  this  time  a  popular  preacher  at 
Clerkenwell,  and  author  of  many  anti-Popery  works. 
See  Diet.  Nat.  BiogJ] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  ought  to  have  written — if 
only  in  gratitude  for  much  mirth  given — who  your 
victim  Harry  Jones  is.  I  presume  his  real  crime  was 
in  making  fun  (Jonesian  fun)  of  the  Sacred  Bears, 


ir  CLERICAL  CAREER  163 

perhaps  too  in  admiring  the  "scenery."  Harry  Jones  is 
a  parson  of  the  Charles  Kingsley  school,  with  a  sort  of 
forced  muddy- boot  originality  about  him,  who  does 
very  good  honest  work  in  a  most  awful  district  by  the 
Haymarket,  writes  silly  papers,  and  belongs  to  our 
C.  C.  C.  We  sup  there  on  Thursday,  and  Cox  goes 
with  me,  so  he  can  give  you  his  verdict  on  the  despiser 
of  "Bars." 

I  have  just  ceased  from  a  most  scandalous  piece  of 
business — on  this  wise.  Maguire,  once  an  Evangelical, 
now  a  "  Bishop  of  London's  man,"  goeth  out  of  Town, 
and  leaves  his  paper  behind  him — a  certain  obscure 
Church  Standard — given  to  mild  Protestantism  and  the 
Apocalypse.  Two  or  three  curates  of  the  Liberal  sort 
get  hold  of  it,  and  write  for  aid  to  me.  I  send  two 
articles,  one  proving  theology  to  be  the  only  utterly 
useless  branch  of  study  for  clerics,  and  the  other  vin- 
dicating "  Ritual  and  Ribbons  "  from  a  Liberal  point  of 
view,  which  drive  the  Constant  Readers  mad,  and  fetch 
back  the  Editor  from  the  salt  sea-waves.  Of  course  his 
arrival  blew  up  the  little  plan  for  annexing  the  paper, 
but  I  hope  it  will  end  in  the  establishment  of  something 
in  its  place. 

Send  back — when  done  with — that  autobiographic 
pamphlet  on  Curates  which  I  sent  you.  When  does  the 
Middle  appear  ?  If  it  is  sufficiently  abusive  I  will  buy 
a  few  copies  for  distribution  among  my  four  curates, 
whereof  one  is  a  "Catholic,"  another  an  "Anglican," 
the  third  Musical,  the  fourth  Literary.  The  first  break- 
fasts at  12.30  in  a  cassock  and  biretta ;  the  second 
spends  his  day  in  getting  signatures  to  petitions  to 
"  the  Lord  Primate  "  ;  the  third  has  just  set  our  General 
Confession  to  a  most  special  and  intricate  opera  tune  ; 
and  the  Literary  Curate  sits  at  home  through  the  week 
reading  Balzac,  and  fires  off  an  "  Eagle's-wing  "  sermon 
on  Sunday  to  the  dock-labourers  at  the  Mission.  They 
are  very  good  fellows,  but  sich  a  team  to  drive  ! 

Are  they  returned  home? — Believe  me,  dear  Free- 
man, ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


1 64  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
August  13,  1866. 

("Date  your  letters,"  E.  A.  F.) 

[Green  often  neglected  to  date  his  letters,  but  the 
dates  have  been  sufficiently  fixed  by  postmarks  or 
allusions  in  the  letters.] 

I  couldn't  let  a  post  go  to  Somerleaze  without  a  line 
to  you,  my  dear  Freeman  ;  the  more  so,  as  I  had  a 
friend  of  Cox's  here  last  night,  and  he  drove  me  mad 
by  quoting  Cox  as  his  authority  for  a  series  of  proposi- 
tions which  ran  thus  :  "  It  is  either  so,  or  it  ain't  so." 
Do  tell  Cox  that  this  is  wretched  reasoning,  whether  in 
religion  or  anything  else.  And  then  we  who  wont 
talk  such  rubbish  are  "  equivocators,"  which  is  pleasant 
to  hear.  "Any  intelligent  layman  would  say  you 
quibble."  Judge,  O  intelligent  layman  !  Credo  in 
Jesum  Christum  .  .  .  qui,  etc.,  is  one  fairly  committed 
by  this  to  any  historical  belief  of  the  statements  followed 
by  the  qui  ?  Suppose  it  ran,  "  I  believe  this  about  Jesus 
Christ,  that  He,"  etc.,  the  matter  would  be  clear,  but 
credo  in  is  not  credo  de. 

My  view  of  the  Creeds  is  this.  I  am  definitely 
asserting  my  belief,  i.e.  trust,  faith,  in  a  Living  Being. 
I  go  on  to  repeat  certain  historic  statements  about  him 
which  may  (or  may  not)  be  affected  by  critical  research, 
which  are  subjects  of  intellectual  credence  and  not  of 
religious  faith.  I  repeat  them — as  I  repeat  phrases  in 
the  prayers, — as  I  read  publicly  legends  from  the  Bible, 
— as  I  repeat  damnatory  psalms  ;  that  is,  I  take  them  as 
parts  of  old  formularies  whose  literal  accuracy  may  pass 
away,  or  whose  tone  may  now  jar  against  the  Christian 
consciousness,  but  which  have  still  an  ideal  truth,  embody 
a  great  doctrine,  continue  the  chain  of  Christian  tradi- 
tion. Thought  will  be  always  altering — we  cannot  be 
always  altering  our  formularies — and  so  (if  we  are  to 
retain  formularies  at  all)  there  will  always  be  a  break 


n  CLERICAL  CAREER  165 

and  dissonance  between  the  two.  But  men  take  things 
in  the  rough.  Because  "  worship "  has  changed  its 
verbal  place  and  ascended  into  heaven,  we  don't 
cease  to  call  a  mayor  "  his  worship,"  and  we  laugh  at 
a  man  who  refuses  to  "  worship  "  his  wife.  Judge,  O 
intelligent  layman  ! — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  G. 

Things  much  better. 

Let  me  know  Dawkins's  opinion  on  this  "  quibbling  " 
question.  In  spite  of  a  late  event  he  may  still  be 
regarded  as  "  intelligent." 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY  (1866). 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  reserved  your  letter  till  I 
could  look  over  the  Battle  accounts,  and  see  whether 
anything  looked  new  in  the  light  of  your  plan,  etc. 
But  I  have  hardly  had  a  moment  to  do  it.  I  am  so 
tired  now  that  I  am  cut  out  of  my  favourite  hour's 
reading — in  bed. 

William  of  Jumieges  says,  locum  editiorem  pr<eoc- 
cupavere,  i.e.  your  height.  Montem  syh<e  -per  quam 
advenere  vicinum,  I  suppose  that  means  "through  which 
the  English  advanced" — the  scrub  of  the  Andredsweald. 
The  ardua  clivi  senslm  ascendit  is,  I  take  it,  the  front 
attack.  The  flight  of  the  Bretons  and  auxiliaries  on  the 
left  wing,  pursued  by  multam  partem  adverse  stationis, 
would  uncover  the  right  of  the  English  ;  while  Robert 
of  Beaumont's  flank  attack  on  their  left  seems  to  have 
been  successful,  cum  legione  quam  in  dextro  cornu  duxit 
irruens.  All  this  squares  with  your  account.  Will 
Jumieges's  account  seems  to  me  in  duplicate,  and  the 
"  stratagem  "  of  the  duke  a  mere  after  invention,  a  bad 
version  of  this  flight  of  the  Bretons.  But  you  will 
know  better  than  I.  ... 

And  I  have  kept  thanks  for  your  cheque  till  now ! 
I  have  spent  every  halfpenny  of  it  in  brandy,  beef-tea, 


1 66  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

arrowroot,  etc.,  etc.  Isn't  this  the  best  way  of  thank- 
ing you  ?  Things  are  bettering  here  ;  getting  worse 
elsewhere. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

October  19,  1866. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Don't  think  me  a  bear  for 
my  silence  ;  I  have  been  simply  choked  up  with  work 
since  my  return.  As  for  "  papers  "  and  "  Neo-Bretons  " 
they  are  out  of  the  question  for  another  fortnight  yet. 
The  fall  of  the  year  has  brought  its  usual  sick-list — the 
Institute  is  starting  anew,  and  its  classes  have  to  be 
arranged  ;  our  District  Visiting  Society  to  be  set  again 
on  foot ;  the  Sunday  School  has  lost  its  three  most 
useful  teachers  ;  the  Church  Decoration  Society  on  the 
other  hand  is  too  energetic  and  requires  holding  in  ; 
we  are  setting  up  two  night  schools  ;  and  I  have  the 
whole  parish,  Sunday  and  week-day,  on  my  hands  with- 
out aid.  This  for  a  lazy  beggar  is  rather  a  grind. 
However,  I  have  found  time  to  do  a  little  reading, 
and  to-day  am  easing  my  epistolary  conscience  by  a 
little  writing.  .  .  . 

I  fancy  I  shall  be  wanting  you  soon  to  help  in  a  raid 
against  Jesus.  It  is  a  secret,  but  may  be  told  to  you.  A 
young  Jesus  man  has  just  got  a  fellowship  at  Queen's,  and 
proposes  a  Crusade,  in  which  of  course  I  am  too  happy 
to  join.  Don't  confound  this  with  any  "  crack  "  of  mine 
against  Oxford.  It  is  a  wholly  different  matter.  ^5000 
are  spent  annually  in  that  vile  place  on  "  Welsh  educa- 
tion." They  have  nibbled  down  to  nothing  the  reforms 
proposed  by  the  Commissioners.  They  have  it  all  their 
own  way.  What,  then,  do  they  do  for  the  education  of 
Wales? 

First,  they  exclude  three-fourths  of  the  Welsh  people 
from  all  participation  in  the  benefits  and  endowments 
of  the  place  by  the  exclusion  of  Dissenters.  Secondly, 
they  give  such  an  education  that  of  the  Anglican  frac- 
tion left  only  those  who  can  go  nowhere  else  go  to 
Jesus.  No  headmaster  in  Wales  will  allow  a  promising 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  167 

boy  to  go  there.  Harper  at  Sherborne,  an  old  fellow, 
openly  avows  that  he  sends  only  his  "  third-rate " 
Welshmen.  It  comes  to  this,  that  they  have  forty 
exhibitions  of  ^40,  and  twenty  scholarships  at  j£8o. 
They  are  sure  therefore  of  sixty  men,  but  the  number 
is  seldom  much  greater,  and  the  fringe  is  wholly  made 
up  of  men  waiting  to  step  into  other  men's  shoes. 
During  my  four  years  at  Jesus  I  knew  of  hardly  a  couple 
of  men  who  came  there  without  being  paid  for  it. 

But  the  first  point  is  the  most  important.  It  is 
simply  scandalous  that  after  all  this  patriotic  prate 
about  Wales,  these  men  should  in  effect  turn  the  bulk 
of  Wales  from  their  doors.  It  is  done  for  "  the  good 
of  the  Church."  But  what  does  Jesus  do  for  the  Church 
in  Wales  ?  Does  it  send  a  higher,  better-toned,  harder- 
working,  more  learned  set  of  men  than  Lampeter  or  St. 
Aidan  ?  The  Bishops  shake  their  heads  when  one  asks 
the  question.  Moreover  where  do  the  Jesus  livings 
lie,  on  this  side  of  Severn  or  that  ? 

As  for  their  attachment  to  Wales,  there  is  hardly  a 
man  of  them  who  can  speak  Welsh  ;  not  a  man  who 
knows  anything  of  Welsh  history  or  literature.  They  let 
Lady  C.  Guest  publish  the  Mabinogion  from  their  library 
where  it  lay  unread  ;  and  when  one  of  their  fellows 
(Ap-Ithel)  tries  his  hand  at  history  we  get  Comes  Paschte. 

What  Browne  will  propose  I  don't  know  ;  probably 
only  the  admission  of  Dissenters  to  all  the  benefits  of 
the  foundation.  This  is  wiser  perhaps  than  going 
further,  especially  as  I  think  we  can  move  the  "  Dis- 
senting Interest  "  in  this  way,  and  so  get  leverage.  .  .  . 

Good-bye,  my  dear  Freeman.  Give  my  kindest 
remembrances  to  Mrs.  Freeman,  Margaret,  and  the  rest 
of  the  family,  and  believe  me,  faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

I  am  in  feud  with  the  British  Museum  people  ;  I 
have  lost  my  ticket,  and  they  hold  out  against  granting 
a  new  one  ;  tell  one  to  "  search,"  etc.  This  is  a  bore 
for  your  references. 


1 68  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
October  29,  1866. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Your  books  entitle  you  to 
thanks,  and  your  "  Genesis  of  Curates  "  to  a  letter.  I 
suppose  I  may  write  impartially  in  that  you  rank  me 
either  among  the  rare  "  Sensible  C.'s "  or  still  rarer 
"  Learned  C.'s  "  whom  you  so  carefully  distinguish  from 
the  Curate  world  and  from  one  another. 

I  quarrel  with  the  very  heart  of  your  article, — the 
distinction  between  Incumbent  and  Curate.  "  You 
cannot  prejudge  a  Rector."  "  There  is  a  presumption 
against  a  Curate."  And  this  because  the  one  may  have 
been  a  Classman,  while  the  other  must  have  taken  a 
Pass.  Now,  putting  aside  other  objections,  is  the  fact 
itself  true  ?  It  could  only  be  true  if  every  classman 
got  a  Fellowship, — but  is  this  so  ?  What  (even  grant- 
ing that  all  "  Firsts  "  get  their  Fellowship)  what  becomes 
of  the  Seconds  and  Thirds  ?  I  ran  my  eye  over  the  list 
of  those  ordained  with  me,  and  of  the  Oxford  men 
one-half  were  classmen.  Two  for  instance  were  Oriel 
scholars.  One  was  a  scholar  of  Brazenose.  In  fact 
then,  you  have  a  proportion  of  classmen  among  curates, 
and  counting  noses  you  have  as  great  a  •pro-portion  among 
Curates  as  among  Incumbents. 

But,  after  all,  this  is  a  merely  Oxford  way  of  look- 
ing at  the  matter.  The  truth  is,  you  have  never  left 
Oxford.  If  it  were  not  for  cattle  plagues  you  would 
be  as  much  in  Oxford  at  Somerleaze  as  you  were  at 
Trinity.  Now,  taking  off  Oxford  spectacles,  what  has 
a  Fellowship  to  do  with  the  question  ?  Nothing  at  all 
with  the  question  of  a  Curate's  practical  usefulness  in  a 
parish, — that  you  seem  to  grant.  But  what  has  it  to 
do  with  his  preaching  ?  Really  good  speaking, — and 
preaching  is  nothing  else, — is  a  perfectly  distinct  and 
independent  gift  :  in  the  Union  in  my  day  it  lay  pretty 
evenly  between  Classmen  and  Passmen.  As  far  as 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  169 

my  experience  in  London  goes  the  Passmen  are,  head 
for  head,  better  preachers  than  the  Classmen.  Rowsell 
is  the  best  preacher  intellectually  in  London  ;  Bellew 
the  finest  ad-captandum  orator.  Rowsell  was  a  pass- 
man, Bellew  a  "  plough."  Recurring  to  my  list, — the 
proportion  is  the  same  among  the  Curates  ordained  with 
me.  But  look  at  Oxford  itself.  Half  of  its  churches 
are  filled  by  Fellows.  On  your  theory  nowhere  ought 
there  to  be  better  preaching.  In  fact  nowhere  is  there 
worse.  Crede  experto, — believe  an  Oxford  boy.  After 
all,  practical  experience  is  the  best  test.  If  I  wanted  a 
"preaching  Curate"  a  College  Fellowship  would  be  the 
last  place  I  should  look  for  him  in. 

The  truth  is — for  preaching  you  want  general  cul- 
ture rather  than  special  culture.  Great  refinement,  ex- 
treme accuracy  are  useless  in  what  must  be  in  its  essence 
an  appeal  to  the  feelings.  However  one  may  argue  in 
a  sermon  it  must  all  centre  itself  in  the  closing  appeal 
to  religious  feeling.  And  the  force  of  this  appeal  can 
only  come  from  a  power  of  sympathy, — the  one  power 
lacking  in  "  dons  "  and  weaker  in  men,  I  think,  as  they 
grow  into  some  special  subject  of  study.  The  croquet 
you  despise,  the  cricket,  the  frank  mingling  with  all  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  men  and  women  about  them, — this 
is  the  real  training  of  a  preacher.  And  of  this  the 
Curate  has  a  far  greater  chance  than  the  Fellow  of  a 
College. 

Of  course  I  am  not  asserting  that  we  have  "  14,000 
good  solid  young  orators."  All  I  say  is  that  (i)  the 
presumption  of  a  Curate's  being  a  Classman  is  as  great 
as  that  of  an  Incumbent  being  a  Classman  ;  (2)  that 
eloquence  and  the  power  of  speaking  is  a  special  gift  in 
no  wise  identical  with  the  power  or  wish  to  get  a  class  ; 
(3)  that  in  fact  the  training  which  a  Curate  receives  in 
practical  work  is  more  likely  to  make  him  a  good 
preacher  than  the  training  of  the  Fellow  of  a  College. 

I  must  not  write  any  more.  Stubbs  comes  here  to- 
day ;  I  know  he  quarrelled  with  Sidney  Owen's  paper, 
and  I  suppose  he  will  be  on  my  side  about  yours.  I 


i  yo  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

went  about  your  references,  but  found  him  answering 
them  for  you.  When  will  your  first  volume  be  out  ? 
I  do  hope  you  will  consider  whether  it  would  not  be 
wiser  to  defer  its  publication  till  the  second  is  ready. 
Men  seldom  read  prefaces,  and  your  first  volume  by 
itself  would  be  like  sending  simply  a  preface  into  the 
world. 

I  am  proud  of  having  you  two  letters  in  my  debt. 
Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STBPNEY, 

January  23,  1867. 

[Green's  second  article  in  the  Saturday  Review  called 
"  Watch  and  Ward  at  Oxford,"  appeared  on  March  9, 
1867.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  have  just  returned  from 
Little  Bowden,  where  I  have  seen  much  ice  and  heard 
much  Barlow.  I  only  stayed  a  couple  of  days,  and  came 
away  rather  overpowered  with  the  number  of  parsons 
invited  to  meet  me.  It  was  like  dining  in  full  Convoca- 
tion. They  were  all  "  beneficed  clergy "  but  (pace 
your  article)  I  found  them,  with  the  exception  of  one, 
Osborne,  very  little  the  wiser  for  that.  However,  in 
the  intervals  of  Barlow  I  managed  to  read  the  Merchant 
and  Friar  ^ — the  first  book  which  gave  me,  in  my  boy- 
hood, a  notion  of  what  history  was. 

Do  you  know  where  I  could  get  in  a  paper  on  the 
struggle  between  the  University  and  City  of  Oxford, 
— treated  as  one  episode  of  the  history  of  municipal 
freedom, — call  it  "  Oxford,  Town  and  Gown  "  ?  I 
have  done  about  ten  pages  of  print  of  it,  but  I  shan't  go 
on  without  some  notion  of  its  getting  into  print. 

I  had  to  leave  Naseby  to  the  snow  and  Goldwin,— 
but  I  managed  to  get  over  to  Northampton,  with  an 
eye  to  Thomas.     Unluckily,  Barlow  got  me  late  for  my 
train  and  so  I  had  hardly  any  time,  and  missed  the  site 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  171 

of  the  Priory  (?).  I  was  most  interested  in  S.  Peter's, — 
but  I  cant  believe  the  date  given  in  the  glossary  ( 1 1 20) 
unless  you  certify.  I  see  you  don't  question  it  in  a 
paper  by  "  E.  A.  Freeman,  Scholar  of  Trinity,"  which 
Barlow  has  sent  me  in  MS.  and  which  is  full  of  corbels 
and  drip-stones,  and  such  like  marks  of  "  early  work." 
Anyhow  I  hope  Thomas  might  have  seen  it, — S.  Peter's, 
not  the  paper. 

Mrs.  Barlow  seems  to  have  travelled  much,  and  has 
lived  two  years  in  America, — which  delighted  me, — but 
lived  in  the  North  as  a  Southerner,  which  took  away 
my  delight.  More  and  more  I  feel  myself  sheering 
away  from  England  and  English  politics, — it  may  be 
from  English  religion  too.  I  have  just  made  one  of  a 
deputation  to  the  Council  Office  about  "  poor  schools." 
Conceive  a  Minister  of  Education  who  didn't  know  the 
very  rudiments  of  the  matter, — a  Vice-President  who 
had  to  ask  us  for  information  supplied  from  his  own 
office  !  I  came  back  thinking  much  of  many  things. 
What  hinders  Reform  ?  The  want  of  education  among 
the  people.  And  what  hinders  education  but  the 
present  attempt  at  a  sectarian  and  not  a  national 
system  ?  And  what  hinders  a  national  system  of  educa- 
tion but  the  Church  ?  People  say, — lyingly, — that  the 
clergy  once  withheld  the  Bible  from  the  people, — now 
they  may  boast  truly  enough  that  they  withhold  the 
spelling-book. 

The  present  system  of  Education  has  done  much, — 
yes,  but  it  has  done  all  that  it  can  do.  No  mere 
quarrels  about  Conscience-clauses  can  touch  that  matter. 
Nothing  can  touch  it  but  a  general  system  of  compul- 
sory National  Education,  supported  by  a  national  rate. 
I  wish  people  could  see  the  waste  of  the  present  system, 
—half  a  dozen  schools,  British,  National,  Private,  where 
one  good  large  school  would  suffice  at  one-third  of  the 
total  expense,  at  double  the  present  results. 

But  what  chance  is  there  of  such  a  change  ?  Just 
none  whatever.  The  clergy  know  that  a  thoroughly 
educated  people  and  that  people  without  any  uneducated 


172  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

class  would  be  the  ruin  of  their  Establishment.  The 
squirearchy  see  that  with  it  a  squirearchy  would  be  im- 
possible. And  so  they  fight  every  point, — the  Con- 
science-clause is  a  little  thing, — but  with  them  it  is  a 
fight  for  life.  They  won't  win  in  the  long  run, — but  I 
am  sick  of  looking  forward  to  a  free  England  which 
will  appear  about  a  century  and  a  half  after  I  am  dead. 
And  so  more  and  more  I  can't  help  looking  to  the  West. 
There  is  the  world  as  the  world  will  be.  There  are  all 
the  things  one  hopes  for  and  cares  for  and  lives  for. 
There  is  a  people, — there,  and  not  here  in  England. 

Don't  be  angry  with  me  because  I  see  that  things 
hang  together,  and  that  it  is  no  good  pegging  away  at 
one  little  point  and  another  little  point  as  I  am  doing 
here.  Socially  my  work  here  and  good  men's  work 
everywhere  is  simply  thrown  away.  The  working  men 
do  not  go  to  Church  or  Chapel ;  and  as  they  grow  in 
knowledge  and  self-respect  they  still  stay  away. 
"  Missions," — "  open  Churches," — are  for  all  practical 
purposes  a  simple  failure.  Schools  half  educate  the 
children  we  do  get  and  leave  untouched  the  masses  that 
want  them  most.  Heigho  ! 

I  have  just  begun  Cox's  article  on  Rawlinson.  As 
yet  I  like  it  marvellously. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

The  distress  is  waxing  great  about  us. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
"January  28,  1867. 

[Hunt  is  the  Rev.  W.  Hunt,  since  distinguished 
as  a  writer  upon  history.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Have  you  seen  a  wolf — or 
why  don't  you  write  ?  Hunt  is  here  with  me,  and  we 
talk  much  of  you  and  your  doings.  Hunt's  presence, 
too,  brought  Bryce  ;  he  turned  in  to  service  last  night, 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  173 

and  heard  what  our  Welsh  friends  would  call  my 
"  eloge "  on  S.  Paul.  Then  he  supped  and  talked. 
Much  of  our  chat  turned  on  a  scheme  Hunt  and  I 
thought  we  had  hit  out  together,  but  which  (it  seems) 
Bryce  had  anticipated  —  the  starting  of  a  purely 
Historical  Review.  He  had  consulted  Macmillan,  who 
believed  it  would  certainly  succeed,  but  recommended 
the  form  to  be  an  annual  volume  like  the  Oxford 
Essays.  This  however  is  not  Bryce's  view  ;  he  would 
prefer  a  Quarterly  ;  for  my  own  part  I  believe  in  a 
shilling  Monthly.  Ably  done,  as  Bryce  says,  if  it  did 
not  find  an  historic  interest  abroad  it  would  create  it. 
He  had  spoken  to  Stubbs,  and  Stubbs  was  warm  in 
support.  He  thought  of  Stubbs  as  Editor. 

What  are  your  views  of  it  ?  For  myself  I  think 
it  might  succeed  if  we  avoided  the  rock  of  mere 
archaeology,  and  the  making  it  too  much  "  First 
Period."  A  summary  of  foreign  historical  literature  as 
it  is  published  would  save  no  little  trouble.  Would 
you  back  it  ?  I  fancy  one  of  the  difficulties  would  be 
what  to  do  with  the  Stanleys  and  Kingsleys.  If  they 
were  shut  out  the  thing  would  fail.  And  yet  would 
you  let  them  in  ? 

My  "  Oxford "  still  waits  to  know  where  it  could 
"get  in."  Hunt  read  me  his  beginning  on  Bristol; 
he  hasn't  learnt  yet  to  give  up  dreams  about  "  Roman 
cities,"  and  be  content  with  the  facts  God  gives  him. 
What  I  like  about  him  historically  is  his  enthusiasm. 
He  really  loves  the  thing,  and  is  willing  to  work  at  it 
for  the  love  of  it.  And  in  himself  he  is  so  bright 
and  cheerful  that  his  presence  does  one  a  world  of 
good.  What  is  most  amusing  is  the  influence  Lord 
Radstock  seems  to  have  won  over  him  —  he  has 
"  evangelised "  him  to  the  nth.  But  I  remember 
suffering  from  a  similar  attack  myself  once  in  the 
Revival  time,  and  it  passed  away — as  all  things  pass 
away. — Good-bye,  dear  Freeman,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


174  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January  29,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — This  is  no  letter  nor  reply 
to  your  letter,  but  simply  an  acknowledgment  of  your 
kindness.  Dickenson  has  just  sent  me  ^5,  and  Stop- 
ford  Brooke  £20,  so  that  loaves  will  wander  free  over 
the  parish  for  a  week  or  two. 

Is  Oxford  drunk  ?  "  The  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical 
History  will  this  Term  lecture  on  the  Ethics  of 
Aristotle,  and  the  Age  of  Socrates."  I  cherish  a  fond 
hope  that  it  may  be  the  Christian  Socrates  and  not  the 
^Esculapian,  but  I  fear  much.  But  then  is  Oxford 
only  drunk  ?  Dawkins  is  reviewing  a  book  on  Greek 
Art  for  Cook,  which  almost  equals  Mansel.  My  most 
Musical  friend  is  just  made  Lecturer  on  Ancient 
History  at  the  Queen's  College  in  Harley  Street. 
"Where  was  Marathon?"  he  moaned  to  me  over 
White's  Analysis. — Good-bye,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

Be  at  Stubbs's  Inaugural,  and  I  will  be  there. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 

Sunday,  February  (1867). 

[Green's  first  article  in  the  Saturday  Review  on 
March  2,  1867  was  a  review  of  Dr.  Stubbs's  Inaugural 
Lecture  as  Professor  of  Modern  History  at  Oxford.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  I  have  come  back  from 
Oxford  —  a  fact  to  me  less  wonderful  than  that  I 
should  ever  have  gone  there.  But  Stubbs  piped  unto 
me  and  I  danced.  I  daresay  you  will  hear  very 
different  reports  of  Stubbs's  piping — Sidney  Owen  for 
instance  looks  on  it  as  a  sort  of  "  wild  shriek  of 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  175 

Toryism,"  a  long  "  abuse  of  Goldwin,"  and  the  like. 
But  on  the  whole  it  seems  to  have  made  a  favourable 
impression,  not  merely  on  our  set,  but  on  the  world. 
Rolleston  told  Dax  that  he  had  heard  it  "  shewed  great 
power"  ;  in  fact  I  think  it  has  demolished  the  "mere 
antiquary  "  notion  altogether. 

Vigorous  it  certainly  was.  About  the  middle  of  it 
the  learned  Professor  went  off  in  crackers,  epigrams 
flew  about  wildly.  To  me  the  chief  attraction  lay  in 
its  being  so  thoroughly  unconventional — so  perfectly 
Stubbs.  I  don't  suppose  Oxford  understood  the 
modesty  of  the  beginning,  or  the  religious  glow  of  the 
end.  After  describing  the  love  and  patronage  of 
historic  literature  in  the  Hanoverian  house,  he  dwelt 
on  the  long  sleep  of  the  Professorship,  its  premature 
awakening  under  Arnold,  the  new  position  in  which  it 
was  placed  in  the  present  day  by  the  general  arousing 
of  the  historic  spirit,  by  the  opening  up  of  new  material, 
by  the  development  of  the  modern  history  school  at 
Oxford.  That  school  had  already  begotten  Bryce, 
and  Burrows !  After  a  few  words  of  real  love  and 
pathos  about  Shirley,  he  dwelt  on  the  mode  of  studying 
history,  and  the  educational  result  to  be  expected. 
Here  came  the  crackers.  The  chair  was  not  to  be  a 
chair  of  Politics,  but  of  simple,  sheer  work.  Perhaps 
the  great  political  lesson  to  be  learnt  was  not  that 
"the  stupid  party"  were  on  one  side,  the  intelligences  on 
the  other,  but  that  both  sides  had  their  stupid,  their 
intelligent  party.  As  to  the  educational  result,  he 
distinguished  Modern  from  Ancient  History.  The  one 
was  dead  ;  we  were  living  in  the  other.  But  if  this 
made  the  last  less  valuable,  we  bringing  our  prejudices, 
etc.,  the  other  fact  that  in  Ancient  History  all  the 
materials  were  known,  and  nothing  required  but  their 
classification  ;  in  other  words,  our  bringing  our  theories 
to  their  arrangement — while  the  constant  discovery  of 
fresh  materials  for  Modern  History  made  us  patient 
learners  rather  than  theorists — restored  the  balance. 
Modern  History  shared  with  Physical  Science  the 


176  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

"  pleasure  of  discovery."  This  remark  was  just 
thrown  down  and  passed  by, — to  my  mind  it  was  the 
finest  in  the  lecture.  Then  came  the  religious  close — 
very  odd  it  must  have  seemed  to  Oxford,  as  it  did 
even  to  me,  but  so  true  to  Stubbs — the  old  simple 
lesson  that  the  world's  history  Jed  up  to  God,  that 
modern  history  was  but  the .  broadening  of  His  Light 
in  Christ.  I  remember  when  this  was  my  clue  to 
history  once — I  am  afraid  I  have  lost  it  without  gain- 
ing another.  But  conceive  the  thoughts  of  Young 
Liberalism ! 

Tuesday,  February  12. — A  little  note  to  you  has 
gone  since  I  wrote  the  foregoing.  Stubbs's  great  error, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  concerning  the  distinction  between 
Ancient  and  Modern  History.  He  did  not  say  where 
the  latter  began,  whether  (with  you)  at  the  Call  of 
Abraham,  or  (with  Burrows)  at  the  Flood.  Anyhow, 
unless  he  adopts  Burrows's  definition,  I  am  certain  the 
distinction  is  fraught  with  infinite  mischief.  I  am  not 
likely  to  be  prejudiced  in  favour  of  the  age  of  Pericles  ; 
but  is  it  true  that  that  Age  is  dead  to  us,  and  the 
Age  of  Dunstan  living  ?  In  the  sense  of  "  social  and 
political  institutions"  I  take  it  it  is  dead ;  but  if  we  take 
the  deeper  facts  of  the  world's  life,  with  one  single 
exception,  it  is  more  living  than  the  later  age.  Its 
thoughts  on  philosophical,  artistic,  literary,  scientific 
subjects  are  our  thoughts — Dunstan's  are  utterly  alien 
to  ours.  And  as  to  the  "one  subject,"  Christianity — 
I  think  we  are  likely  to  give  it  a  factitious  importance 
by  making  it  the  factor  when  it  is  but  one  factor  of 
modern  society. 

Anyhow,  the  distinction  was  most  unfortunate  in  an 
Oxford  Inaugural.  Oxford  seems  to  me  the  one  place 
where  this  distinction  vanishes.  There  in  its  very 
system  of  training  the  old  and  the  new  worlds  are 
brought  together  as  they  are  brought  nowhere  else. 
Men  find  that  they  can  still  speak  the  words  of 
Demosthenes,  and  think  the  thoughts  of  Aristotle. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  177 

Of  course,  the  results  are  sometimes  very  odd — just  as 
the  mingling  of  the  old  and  new  in  the  Book  of  the 
Revelations  begets  very  queer  "  beasts "  and  odd 
thunderings  and  lightnings.  Still  you  do  get,  manifest 
to  men,  a  blending  of  our  day  with  the  days  of  old 
that  you  get  nowhere  else.  Now — had  I  been  Modern 
History  Professor — I  would  have  tried  to  bring  out 
the  historic  value  of  this  fact.  In  the  old  world  you 
see  certain  truths  under  one  set  of  conditions,  in  the 
new  world  under  other  sets  of  conditions.  What  is 
the  value  of  the  truths  ? 

Heigho,  what  a  ditty.  Let  me  review  Stubbs  for  the 
Reviler,  and  I  will  say  more.  I  have  much  more  to  say. 

The  Chronicon  "  Malleacense "  is  a  Poitevin 
Chronicle — so  called  from  an  entry  at  the  close  about 
the  foundation  of  that  monastery,  from  Caroling  times 
to  1 1 34 — fragmentary  at  close.  The  entries  are  brief, 
but  good  for  Poitou,  and  with  a  reference  to  Angevin 
matters  here  and  there.  Given  in  Labbe,  Nova  Biblio- 
theca,  ii.  190-220.  I  fancied  it  was  in  Duchesne,  if 
so  missed  it  in  looking  hastily  to-day.  Better  name 
"  C.  S.  Maxentii,"  so  Labbe. — Good-bye.  Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 

February. 

[Cook  is  John  Douglas  Cook  (1808-1868)  editor  of 
the  Saturday  Review  from  its  start  till  his  death.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Stubbs  sent  me  the  proof  of 
the  greater  part  of  his  Lecture,  and  I  have  finished  all 
but  the  close  of  my  review.  It  will  go  in  to  Cook 
to-day.  Cook  has  replied  to  my  note  in  the  j oiliest 
way — promising  me  your  book — sending  me  Bruce 's 
Roman  Wall  (which  I  shall  like  to  say  a  word  or 
two  about  much),  and  asking  me  to  come  and  see 
him,  which  I  will  do  next  Monday.  "  Johnny "  or 
"Jack  "? 


1 78  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  had  not  intended  to  say  a  word  about  Stubbs's 
"politics,"  but  I  will  just  a  word  now  as  the  Oxford 
curs  are  barking  at  his  heels.  They  are  in  reality  not 
politics  but  idealism.  "  I  don't  want  to  teach  you  to 
be  a  Tory  or  a  Whig,  but  whichever  you  are,  be  a 
good  Whig  or  a  good  Tory."  Why  do  the  heathen 
rage  against  this?  But  I  am  greatly  distressed  by  the 
tone  of  Stubbs's  note,  because  I  see  how  he  is  worried. 

What  I  am  most  struck  with  in  reading  the  lecture 
is  its  literary  merit ;  all  the  first  and  middle  part  is 
wonderfully  clear  and  orderly  in  structure,  and  there 
are  bursts  of  really  eloquent  writing  such  as  I  never 
looked  for.  However  you  will  see  and  judge  for 
yourself. 

Macmillan's  letter  (thanks  for  sending  it)  is  very 
keen  and  good,  just  because  it  expresses  the  thoughts 
of  an  average  clever  reader.  That  is  just  the  sort  of 
criticism  it  is  so  difficult  to  get,  and  yet  which  in  the 
long  run  settles  the  fate  of  a  book.  You  know  it  is 
my  old  principle  that  a  book,  whatsoever  else  it  be, 
must  first  be  readable.  What  I  am  sure  you  have 
done  in  yours  is  to  lay  a  sound  foundation  for  all  after 
historical  attempts. 

I  am  so  much  better  than  I  was,  and  one  great 
anxiety  has  rolled  away  by  my  getting  a  Curate.  This 
will  give  me  time  and  rest.  But  it  is  a  real  question 
whether  I  had  not  better  resign  this  place.  It  exhausts 
both  my  means  and  my  strength. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
March  2,  1867. 

[The  first  volume  of  Freeman's  Norman  Conquest 
had  just  appeared.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — You  will  see  "  Stubbs  "  in  to- 
day's Reviler, — and  must  give  me  a  little  advice  about 
it.  Frankly  to  speak  I  like  it  myself,  but  I  don't 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  179 

think  I  have  quite  caught  the  tone  of  the  Saturday^ — 
the  "  periodical  "  tone, — it  is  too  "  essayish  "  ("  slightly 
priggish,"  as  an  Oxford  Liberal  would  say).  I  will  try 
and  amend  this  in  The  Roman  Wall  which  must  be 
shorter  and  more  chatty  in  tone.  "  Clever  talk  across 
paper  "  I  take  to  be  what  is  wanted,  but  I  shall  find  it 
very  hard  to  hit.  However  I  will  try. 

Your  book  (i.e.  the  Saturday  copy, — not  yours  to 
me)  came  last  night,  and  between  dinner  and  a  Com- 
mittee meeting  I  read  what  I  could  straight  away, 
omitting  the  notes.  You  know  that  like  Gibbon  I 
have  a  hatred, — a  sort  of  physical  antipathy  to  notes, 
There  is  something  to  me  in  the  very  look  of  a  page  : 
and  I  daresay  this  is  what  unconsciously  told  on  Mac- 
millan  and  gave  him  the  notion  which  puzzles  you  of 
the  book  being  argumentative  rather  than  narrative. 
Still  there  is  something  in  what  he  says.  Take  the 
very  opening  (I  am  writing  from  memory),  the  first 
two  sentences  are  narrative, — the  third  is  at  once  argu- 
mentative. The  keen  appreciation  of  analogies  and 
differences  which  strikes  me  as  your  peculiar  merit 
sometimes  acts  in  this  way,  interposing  a  little  disserta- 
tion (wonderfully  good  it  always  is)  when  the  statement 
ought  to  be  moving  on.  I  thought  I  would  read  out 
the  opening  part  to  my  sister  and  brother.  The  first  is 
historical  in  taste  and  enjoyed  it  mightily  ;  the  second 
who  has  no  special  taste  or  knowledge  of  the  matter, 
but  has  a  good  deal  of  sense  and  the  average  informa- 
tion of  men  said  :  "  I  understand  and  like  the  general 
drift  of  it, — but  I  can't  follow  the  allusions."  I  take 
it  he  meant  to  express  very  much  what  I  have  said. 

But  you  know,  my  dear  Freeman,  it  is  simply  a 
glorious  book,  and  destined  to  give  the  tone  to  "  those 
that  come  after."  This  is  the  way  I  think  of  treating 
it  rather  than  in  looking  for  what  I  have  as  yet  failed  to 
find — errors  of  detail, — its  value,  I  mean,  as  affording 
a  sound  base  and  laying  down  right  laws  for  the  histories 
that  must  follow.  My  mode  of  work  may  be  very 
different :  but  my  work  must  be  on  the  same  line, — 


i8o  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

the  line,  that  is,  of  the  essential  unity  and  national  de- 
velopment of  our  history.  But  I  feel  awfully  young 
and  crude  as  I  read  your  pages,  and  feel  inclined  to  belie 
the  kind  words  of  your  preface. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
March  25,  1867. 

[In  a  letter  of  March  17,  Green  says  that  he  is  laid 
up  with  a  sharp  attack  of  pleurisy.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  a  man  again.  Yesterday 
I  woke  up  better,  and  to-day  I  wake  up  well.  So  now 
to  work  which  is  sadly  in  arrear.  Last  night  I  wrote 
off  the  best  article  I  have  ever  written  on  those  Fonte- 
vraud  tombs  ;  I  hope  Cook  will  put  it  in  next  week, 
because  I  happen  to  know  that  the  matter  has  created 
far  more  irritation  in  France  than  we  have  any  notion 
of,  and  I  should  like  the  French  folk  to  know  that  the 
English  folk  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  but  only  the 
Smiths  and  the  Bonapartes.  But  the  priggish  ignorance 
of  Smith  junior  beats  belief.  I  have  poked  at  him  as 
well  as  I  could, — but  with  all  reverence.  Thanks  for 
the  Savile  on  the  Angevins ;  he  is  very  amusing, 
especially  in  his  use  of  old  Mezeray  whom  he  seems  to 
look  upon  as  an  original  authority.  Still  I  am  merciful 
to  anybody  who  knows  anything  about  Fulc  Nerra. 
That  is  my  weak  point  you  know  ;  so  he  shall  have  the 
benefit  of  it. 

As  to  the  Norman- Angevin  trip,  all  must  hang  upon 
Hunt.  If  he  can  come  and  act  guide,  philosopher,  and 
friend,  I  will  come  in  his  pocket.  If  not,  not.  I  can't 
speak  French,  and  I  have  never  passed  the  Custom- 
house, and  my  distinct  conviction  is  that  I  shall  get 
seized  for  smuggling  something  or  other,  "  bein' 
innercent  as  a  child  unborn,  yer  worship," — or  else  that 
in  my  efforts  to  meet  you  at  Falaise,  I  shall  find  myself 
face  to  face  with  the  Corsican  in  the  Great  Exhibition. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  181 

Then  I  should  of  course  have  to  die  for  liberty,  and 
Mrs.  Stubbs  would  drop  a  tear.  You  see  it's  a  question 
of  detail,  and  if  I  can  get  a  nurse  I  will  come.  But 
alone  and  without  friends  I  am  a  mere  orphan,  dis- 
tinctly lower  in  the  travelling  scale  than  an  unprotected 
female. 

"  Who,"  asks  the  indignant  Barlow,  "  would  have 
had  a  window  down  in  a  railway  carriage  on  such  a 
day  ?  "  — "  He  might  "  (mark  the  subtlety  of  this  sug- 
gestion) "  he  might  have  required  the  same  in  a  First 
Class."  Oh,  Barlow,  Barlow, — the  cunning  and  craft 
of  that  guileless  man  !  You  send  me,  through  him,  a 
tract  about  Ritual, — what  for  ? — Ever  yours,  dear  Free- 
man, J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
April  '67. 

[The  article  upon  the  tombs  at  Fontevraud  appeared 
in  the  Saturday  Review  for  March  30,  1867.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  have  just  made  a  fatal  dis- 
covery, fatal — that  is — to  all  projects  of  a  post-paschal 
excursion.  Our  grand  day  here,  —  SS.  Philip  and 
James, — falls,  of  course,  on  the  ist  of  May,  and  that  is 
only  a  fortnight  and  two  days  after  Pasch, — moreover 
there  be  flowers  and  singers  and  preachers  to  be  got  in 
the  meantime.  I  should  really  be  glad  to  get  out  for  I 
can't  get  right, — the  least  thing  seems  to  upset  me, — 
but  it's  no  good  crooning  over  one's  ailments.  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  they  really  stand  in  the  way  of  one's 
work.  I  am  ashamed  of  my  delay  about  your  book, 
and  your  book  is  one  among  many  ;  for  whenever  I  am 
at  my  worst  Cook  sends  me  a  packet  of  "  books  for 
review,"  which  reduce  me  to  imbecility.  Moreover 
that  abominable  Irish  Curate  keeps  putting  off  coming 
into  work,  and  till  he  comes  all  the  sick-visiting,  etc. 
rests  on  my  shoulders  and  the  worry  thereof. 

I  think  that  having  to  do  the  thing  oneself  helps  one 


1 82  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

wonderfully  to  understand  the  excellences  of  other 
people's  work.  That  is,  although  I  always  liked  your 
reviews  amazingly  I  now  begin  to  understand  how  very 
good  they  are.  For  my  own  part  I  like  writing 
"  Middles  "  best,  but  I  will  do  my  review  work,  like  it 
or  no.  I  have  always  looked  on  "  reading  and  writing  " 
as  so  wholly  a  matter  of  pleasure  and  caprice,  and  as 
lying  so  far  outside  of  one's  actual  work,  that  having  to 
do  it  as  a  matter  of  business  in  certain  time  and  within 
certain  limits  is  far  harder  for  me  than  you  can  think. 
But  it  is  as  good  for  me  as  it  is  hard, — and  I  don't 
forget  that  I  owe  it  to  you.  If  you  can  really  get  me 
into  harness, — into  practical  steady  work, — in  this  line 
you  will  have  done  more  than  any  one  has  been  able  to 
do  yet.  But  I  doubt, — as  Scotchmen  say.  You  see,  J 
am  essentially  dreamy-headed,  and  a  plan  loses  most  of 
its  charm  for  me  when  it  is  realized.  I  like  amazingly 
dreaming  over  the  fire  about  a  little  wife  and  children, 
but  I  know  that  if  ever  wife  and  children  come  they 
won't  be  the  wife  and  children  of  one's  dreams.  And 
so  of  writing  matters.  It  sounds  like  pure  imbecility 
to  confess  that  I  have  got  all  the  materials  for  a  first 
volume  of  my  book,  save  for  two  chapters,  actually  in 
my  note-book,  and  every  detail  of  each  chapter  arranged 
in  my  head,  and  yet  that  I  don't  write  a  line  the  more 
for  all  this.  I  am  always  so  miserably  disappointed 
with  my  work  when  it  is  actually  in  black  and  white. 
Take  that  article  in  this  week's  Rev  Her  on  the  "  Tombs 
at  Fontevraud."  I  enjoyed  awfully  the  thought  of  it 
— but  all  that  I  really  enjoyed  seems  to  have  disappeared 
now  I  can  read  it  as  it  is.  I  suppose  this  is  the  cry  of 
all  weak,  conceited  folk, — and  that  you  will  just  say  "  Do 
your  best  and  don't  think  how  much  better  it  certainly 
might  have  been."  And  this  is  of  course  just  what  a 
steady  resolve  to  write  something  every  week  will  do  for 
me.  But  somehow  I  feel  as  if  life  had  got  a  little 
grayer  and  more  colourless  now  as  if  my  few  pleasures 
had  died  down  into  "  grind."  I  know  that  I  have 
taken  a  little  more  to  music  of  late, — and  I  think  it  is 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  183 

from  a  sort  of  latent  notion  that  a  fugue  or  a  septett 
can  never  take  shape  as  a  "  matter  of  business." 

Now — if  you  are  not  in  an  awful  rage,  my  dear 
Freeman,  it  is  only  because  you  are, — well,  never  mind 
what  I  think  you,  because  nobody  but  some  dozen 
people  would  believe  me,  and  they  know  without  my 
saying  it.  But  it's  very  odd  that  I  can  croon  to  you 
as  I  can  croon  to  so  very  few  people  in  this  world. 

It's  rather  funny  that  you  who  "swear  by  no  party  " 
should  always  want  these  poor  Dizzy-folk  out  when 
they  are  in  ;  while  I,  who  vote  my  "  Liberal  ticket "  on 
principle,  am  very  peacefully  inclined  in  spite  of  the 
Daily  News  and  the  grandis  epistola  from  Somerleaze. 
I  don't  see  any  reformers  on  the  Gladstone  bench  any 
more  than  on  the  Dizzy  bench  ;  and  as  I  think  the 
whole  strength  of  the  question  lies  in  its  own  tendency 
to  drift,  I  think  it  will  drift  better  under  the  present 
ministry  than  under  the  (probably)  next.  You  will 
see  (Coquo  volente}  how  moderate  I  am  in  my  review  of 
those  Essays  on  Reform.  How  they  have  bored  me  I 
will  not  say. 

•  •  •  •  • 

A  chemist  in  the  Mile  End  Road  has  seen  me  elevate 
the  Host  and  wear  a  large  Cross  on  my  back.  Last 
Good  Friday  a  lady  left  the  church  because  I  preached 
"  with  a  crown  of  thorns  on  my  head."  I  believe  both 
to  be  very  truthful  people,  and  neither  to  have  any 
personal  aversion  to  me.  I  wonder  how  you  and  Dax 
would  deal  with  this.  "  Either  they  did  see  it  or  they 
didn't,"  etc. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
April  8,  '67. 

[The  review  of  Essays  on  Reform  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Re-view  of  April  1867.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  extremely  sorry  that 
you  should  have  to  trot  about  alone,  and  quite 
agree  that  the  Philippian  and  Jacobite  worship  is  fond 


184  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  vainly  invented.     But  it  is  simply  impossible  for 
me  to  be  away,  or  away  I  would  be. 

I  see  Cook  this  morning,  and  your  first  part — if  he 
will  allow  me  two — shall  see  light  next  Saturday.  I 
thought  it  best  to  do  that  Reform  business  first,  as  the 
essayists  had  a  notion  that  Cook  had  adjourned  it  till 
the  forthcoming  of  the  second  series. 

I  am  a  little  distressed  about  your  censure  of  me  for 
not  mentioning  Bryce.  I  tried  to  gather  up  the  general 
tendency  of  all  the  essayists  without  mention  of  any. 
Rutson  and  Hutton  I  did  mention  the  names  of  in 
passing  as  far  the  ablest  of  all.  But  I  criticised  none  in 
detail,  and  if  I  had  done  so  I  should  not  have  touched 
on  Bryce,  for  the  simple  reason  that  his  essay  lay  off" 
the  line.  So  to  my  mind  did  Goldwin's  and  Pearson's. 
The  opening  of  Bryce's  I  thought  very  fine  indeed,  and 
some  things  at  the  close.  He  wrote  to  me  last  week 
about  that  false  rumour  I  spoke  of  as  to  Cook,  and 
mentioned  your  note  about  an  Historical  Review.  But 
if  he  doesn't  push  it  himself,  I  don't  know  any  other 
man  to  do  it.  He  could  do  it  because  he  has  a  name. 
I  cannot  help  because  —  unless  I  am  by  good  luck 
mistaken  for  Green  of  Balliol — I  have  none. 

But  I  am  sure  after  all  that  you  don't  think  I  passed 
over  Bryce  for  any  bad  reason.  I  wish  I  knew  him 
better  ;  but  I  am  sure  I  could  not  admire  him  more.  I 
would  give  much  to  be  half  as  clever — or  a  tithe  as 
good  as  he. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
April  1 1 . 

[Green's  review  of  Freeman's  Norman  Conquest 
appeared  in  the  Saturday  Review  for  April  13  and  27, 
1867.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN —  ...  I  accept  to-day  a 
professorship  on  something  at  the  Queen's  College  at 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  185 

Harley  Street  to  preach  unto  young  women ;  so  if 
Mill's  amendment  passes,  and  if  Church  and  State 
dissolve  partnership,  and  if  the  anti-Horne-Tooke  Act 
be  repealed,  I  may  yet  be  the  Honourable  Member  for 
Crinolinopolis. 

Cook — "  if  that  foolish  Gladstone  will  let  me  " — is  off 

to  Cornwall  to  relieve  his (I  spare  you  the  medical 

details).  He  wrote  asking  me  to  come  and  see  him  on 
Monday,  and  we  had  a  most  amusing  chat.  He  wishes 
me  to  stick  to  the  Reviler,  and  not  write  for  anything 
else,  as  he  will  give  me  as  much  work  as  I  like  to  do. 
He  "so  much  liked"  my  (worst}  article  on  the  Reform 
Essays  that  he  wanted  me  to  think  over  the  question  of 
writing  politics  in  the  big-type  part,  and  have  a  chat 
about  it  when  he  returns.  I  have  no  morbid  hatred 
of  big  type,  but  how  my  politics  would  look  in  it  is 
another  matter.  In  all  this  present  muddle  I  hardly 
know  what  I  am  ;  but  I  am  certainly  not  a  Beresford- 
Hopeian  ;  a  "  Poker,"  perhaps,  but  not  "  a  Stoker." 
Now  isn't  that  in  the  "  Jovial  "  style  ? 

If  the  first  part  of  my  review  of  the  Opus  don't 
appear  in  print  this  week  it  is  no  fault  of  mine.  Ditto 
for  the  second  part  next  week.  I  do  hope  you  will 
like  it  because  I  have  taken  pains  about  it ;  though 
when  I  read  it  through  it  seemed  just  as  if  from  that 
very  cause  it  had  an  "  uppish  "  look  about  it.  But  you 
will  understand  that,  even  if  it  looks  so.  I  am  so  glad 
the  book  has  taken  so  well.  Good-bye,  dear  Freeman. 
-Yours  in  all  Johnnyhood,  J.  R.  G. 

Lady    Cranborne's    motto   for    the    Jamaica    Com- 
mittee :   "  This  is  the  Eyre — come  let  us  kill  him." 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
July  '67. 

[The    articles     upon     the     "  Bishop    of    Durham 
(Baring)    and   his   Rural   Dean,"   and    u  Whalley,  De 


1 86  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Profundis,"  (i.e.  G.  H.  Whalley  (1813-1878)  of  anti- 
Popery  fame)  appeared  on  July  20  ;  and  the  Chateau- 
Gaillard  on  July  27,  1867.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  ought  to  have  answered 
your  note  long  ago.  ( i )  As  to  Geoffrey  Martel's  in- 
cestum  conjugium,  I  find  that  Mabillon  and  the  continua- 
tion of  Bouquet,  vol.  x.  say  all  the  row  was  about  G.'s 
marrying  Agnes  "  immediately  after "  her  husband 
William's  death,  but  there  is  no  proof  of  such  a  thing  ; 
the  dates  are  (as  you  have  no  doubt  discovered)  wildly 
at  sea,  but  I  believe  that  the  match  really  came  off  two 
years  later.  Besides,  in  spite  of  "  the  Church's  abhor- 
rence of  marriages  in  early  widowhood,"  I  don't  re- 
member such  being  styled  incest  a.  There  was  in  fact  a 
relationship,  though  a  queer  one  :  dating  from  Theobald 
the  First  of  Blois,  the  father  of  Theobald  the  Trickster 
(Palgrave's  friend).  His  daughter  (Theobald  First's) 
married  Fulc  the  Good  of  Anjou,  Geoffrey  Martel's 
great-grandfather.  On  the  other  hand,  his  grand- 
daughter Emma,  the  daughter  of  the  Trickster,  was  by 
marriage  the  mother  of  William  the  Great  of  Aquitaine, 
our  Agnes's  first  husband.  Agnes  was  therefore  by 
marriage  second  cousin  to  Fulc  Nerra,  Geoffrey's  father. 
This  is  the  nighest  I  can  get — perhaps  you  have  got 
nigher.  I  took  a  journey  into  the  Burgundies  to  look 
up  Otto -William,  Agnes'  father,  and  who  he  came 
from,  Adalbert  of  Lombardy,  etc.,  but  not  being  Bryce 
I  got  "  moithered,"  as  Mrs.  Poyser  says,  and  came 
back  again.  All  this  week  I  have  been  working  hard 
at  Fulc  Nerra  and  Geoffrey  :  the  work  was  really  hard 
because  one  has  to  wade  through  such  a  tangle  of 
blunders.  The  biggest  blunder  is  Mabillon's  about  the 
Carmen  Satyricum  of  Adalbero.  I  wish  I  knew  where 
to  get  a  paper  in  about  it ;  it  is  really  (I  am  sure)  a 
record,  and  the  only  record,  of  the  curious  politics  of  the 
marriage  of  Robert  of  France  (v.-Constantia- Robert) 
with  Bertha,  which  Gregory  V.  had  to  knock  on  the 
head.  Mabillon  printed  it  and  attributed  it  to  1016, 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  187 

and  the  row  between  Anjou  and  Otto  of  Chartres  which 
ended  in  Pont-levoi.  But  his  examination  is  a  perfect 
tissue  of  really  disgraceful  errors.  Ah  me,  the  gods 
tumble  about  when  Mabillon  nods !  But  really  I  think 
I  have  made  out  a  good  deal  about  that  very  hazy  time 
of  French  history,  where  Palgrave  who  is  so  hard  on 
Sismondi  can  fall  into  Sismondi's  blunders  after  all  ; 
and  that  my  first  chapter  on  the  rise  of  Anjou,  every 
bit  of  the  material  of  which  is  now  ready,  will  be  really 
an  Accessio  historica.  I  know  you  will  be  glad  to  find 
me  at  work  on  my  book.  Last  week  was  in  fact  a 
work -week.  Besides  these  two  volumes  of  Bouquet, 
etc.,  I  did  three  middles  for  the  Reviler,  "Whalley," 
"  Baring "  (did  you  recognise  them .?),  and  one  on 
"  Chateau -Gaillard,"  which  has  not  yet  appeared.  I 
am  sure  you  will  like  the  last,  and  will  see  in  it  a  sketch 
of  my  views  about  John  and  the  French  Conquest  of 
Normandy.  As  to  the  "  Whalley  "  I  writ  it  at  Cook's 
desire — ignorant  that  Cook  had  turned  Mohammedan. 
But  it  is  so.  While  examining  Whalley 's  mind  I 
wrote — "  We  must  wait,  however,  for  a  disciple  to  do 
for  the  great  Questioner  of  our  days  what  Plato  did  for 
the  great  Questioner  of  his.  But  has  not  such  a  disciple 
and  expositor  appeared?  There  is  but  one  Whalley, 
but  Murphy  is  the  prophet  of  Whalley."  Cook's  new 
convictions  were  hurt  by  this  parody  of  the  faith  of 
Islam,  and  he  struck  it  out. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  the  Rev.  Isaac  Taylor 

1867. 

Many  thanks,  my  dear  Taylor,  for  thinking  of  me  ; 
but  even  if  I  had  the  time  I  could  not  go.  I  am  simply 
horrified  at  the  things  I  see  going  on  this  winter.  That 
scoundrel, — with  his  "  gold  hidden  under  the  ruins  " 
and  the  like,  and  all  I  can  do  is  to  hold  aloof  and 
shriek.  I  must  shriek,  for  I  have  held  my  tongue  for 
fear  of  hurting  the  poor.  Think  of  that  West-End 


1 88  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Pauperising  Fund  with  its  "  loaf  and  tract "  system  ! 
I  am  working  hard  to  organise  something  like  a  Com- 
mittee supplementary  to  the  working  of  the  Poor  Law 
in  Mile  End  ;  and  I  think  it  will  work.  But  this  news- 
paper appeal  dodge  is  sapping  all  independence.  Fancy 
men  well-to-do  in  business  refusing  to  help  their  own 
poor  because  "  there's  plenty  of  money  will  come  if  you 
advertise."  This  actually  happened.  How  I  wish 
the  clergy  would  strike  and  throw  up  the  relief  business 
altogether !  I  know  you  feel  as  I  do, — so  pardon  my 
shriekings,  for  I  am  heavily  burthened  and  stricken  in 
this  matter. — Ever  yours,  dear  Taylor, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
September  6,  1867. 

[The  British  Association  article  appeared  on  Septem- 
ber 14,  1867.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  was  wrong  and  silly  to  have 
shrieked  over  my  distress,  but  it  is  a  very  real  and  pain- 
ful one,  and  your  little  note  is  more  welcome  than  you 
think.  I  won't  say  more  now,  but  I  think  if  you  come 
over  I  may  be  able  to  tell  you  something.  .  .  .  Come 
and  tell  me  about  yourself  and  your  work, — nothing 
would  cheer  and  relieve  me  so  much.  I  have  just  sent 
a  dull  leader  on  the  Brit.  Assoc.  to  the  Saturday.  Why 
are  you  not  there?  I  have  been  very  regular  in  my 
writing,  and  an  article  on  the  Ritual  Commission  seems 
to  have  made  a  sensation ;  but  I  have  fallen  into  a  trick  of 
writing  from  2  to  5  in  the  morning  which  is  bad  enough. 
I  am  engaged  by  George  Grove  for  a  paper  in  Mac- 
millan ;  he  is  the  new  Editor,  do  you  know  him  ? 

Stubbs  is  here  on  Tuesday  evening.  Will  that  suit 
you  ?  Dine  at  5,  or  name  any  other  day  next  week,  but 
do  come.  I  am  alone  here. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  189 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

CAMELFORD,  CORNWALL, 
October  7,  1867. 

[Cook  had  a  house  near  Boscastle,  where  Green  was 
staying.  "  H."  is  Beresford  Hope,  proprietor  of  the 
Saturday  Review.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX — I  have  had  the  most  jolly  fortnight 
at  this  Cornish  retreat  of  C.'s  ;  boating,  driving,  walk- 
ing along  the  finest  range  of  black  slate  headlands  and 
wreck-inviting  bays  I  ever  saw.  The  whole  land  here 
is  full  of  Arthur  ;  we  are  here  at  wild  Dundagell, — his 
birthplace  ;  close  by  is  Camelot,  quiet  Camelford  now, 
streaming  up  a  green  hill-side  in  a  lane  of  white  houses  ; 
not  far  from  it  is  the  legendary  scene  of  Arthur's  death 
at  Slaughter-bridge,  in  a  broad,  rolling,  featureless  vale. 
I  have  had  a  terrible  cough  and  cold,  but  am  all  the 
stronger  and  brighter  and  better  for  the  change.  The 
H.'s  have  been  here  the  whole  time.  I  don't  know 
which  is  the  jolliest, — B.  or  Lady  M.  or  the  girls.  And 
I  have  chummed  with  Prof.  Owen,  who  is  a  real  man, 
old  boy,  whatever  you  Huxleyites  swear,  and  a  good 
man  too.  To-morrow  I  go  on  to  Freeman,  and  thence 
to  Hunt,  and  thence  by  next  Sunday  home.  Come  and 
see  me  in  town  and  talk  over  your  "  Prince."  I  read 
it  with  all  the  pleasure  I  should  have  had  in  reading 
something  very  good  of  my  own.  Kind  things  to  your 
wife. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
December  16,  1867. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — It  is  an  age  since  I  saw  you  or  heard 
from  you.  What  are  you  doing,  saying,  thinking  ? 
E.  A.  F.  seems  equally  in  the  dark  and  calls  wildly  for 
news  of  you.  I  have  a  notion  that  you  are  busy  with 
your  book,  in  which  case  "  Silence  is  Golden." 


190  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

I  turned  thirty  on  the  I2th.  The  day  brought  a 
sort  of  gray-hairy  feeling  with  it.  After  all  one  has  done 
something  in  the  ten  years  since  one  stood  in  Jesus 
Quad.  But  there  is  lots  more  to  do. 

Stopford  Brooke,  a  friend  of  mine,  has  undertaken 
to  push  the  People  s  Magazine, — a  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge  publication, — into  a  higher  style 
of  thing.  I  have  given  him  an  historical  paper,  simple 
but  of  a  high  class.  But  his  great  wish  is  to  get  good 
scientific  contributions,  such  as  intelligent  artisans  and 
parsons  could  equally  read.  If  you  could  spare  the 
time  (I  suppose  that  is  your  difficulty  as  it  is  mine)  he 
would  be  much  obliged  by  your  giving  him  a  paper  on 
some  scientific  point  of  current  interest,  avoiding  the 
Flint  Folk  for  Christian  Knowledge  sake. 

With  kindest  remembrances  to  your  wife  and  Mrs. 
D. — Believe  me,  yours  ever,  dear  Dax, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

Did  you  like  my  chaff  of  Huxley  in  the  Reviler  ? 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January,  1868. 

[Green  had  himself  written  an  article  in  the  Saturday 
Review  of  January  18,  1868,  upon  Stanley's  Memorials 
of  Westminster  Abbey.  From  a  later  note  it  seems  that 
he  confessed  the  authorship,  and  was  forgiven,  though 
Lady  Augusta  Stanley  for  some  time  resented  some 
rather  sharp  and  probably  too  accurate  criticisms.] 

MY  DEAR  E.  A.  F. — I  really  fancied  I  had  acknow- 
ledged your  cheque.  I  have  devoted  it  to  a  most  dis- 
tressing case,  a  respectable  old  woman  whose  husband 
used  to  be  a  swell  about  here,  and  did  much  for  St. 
Philip's,  and  now  her  son  has  swindled  her  of  every 
half-penny  and  left  her  to  absolute  starvation.  Five 
shillings  a  week  from  your  fund  will  just  tide  her  on 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  191 

till  I  can  get  the  poor  old  soul  something.  I  will  do 
what  I  can  at  Westell's,  but  I  know  nothing  of  the  sub- 
ject or  books.  Stubbs  the  Omniscient  will  know  all 
about  it,  and  I  shall  see  him  soon  as  I  have  promised  to 
visit  him  for  a  few  days  at  the  beginning  of  March. 
By-the-bye  Cook  tells  me  you  are  amazed  at  having 
the  review  of  Stanley  laid  at  your  door  and  made 
that  the  theme  of  a  little  preachment  to  me.  I  can't 
imagine  how  I  could  have  helped  it — however  I  went 
down  to  Stanley's  the  other  night  to  a  "  crush "  on 
purpose  to  make  all  straight,  and  had  a  talk  with  Lady 
August  in  a  corner,  who  moaned  much  because  "she 
admired  Mr.  Freeman  so  much,  and  there  was  no  man 
whose  praise  of  the  book  she  should  have  valued  more," 
etc.  She  really  remembered,  and  talked  well  about,  your 
Battle  piece.  So  I  said  that  I  knew  you  had  not  written 
a  word  of  it,  and  she  was  rejoiced  and  went  off  to  tell  the 
Dean,  and  the  Dean  said  he  had  heard  it  before  from  a 
friend  of  yours,  and  all  was  peace. 

It  was  a  comfort  to  know  that  Boyle,  of  whom  I 
knew  not,  knew  of  "Green  of  Jesus."  My  character 
I  am  afraid  has  perished  under  the  vengeance  of  woman. 
"  He  must  be  not  only  wicked,  my  dear,"  said  a  lady 
who  used  to  like  me,  to  Mrs.  Haweis,  "  but  if  I  may 
say  so  of  a  friend  of  yours,  maliciously  wicked."  Sidney 
Owen  mourneth  over  my  reviews,  —  you  over  my 
middles.  Cook  as  usual  "rejoiceth  in  iniquity,"  and 
for  myself  I  am  moody  and  discontented  with  every- 
thing. 

How  I  wish  I  could  spin  about  the  country  like  you 
instead  of  being  penned  up  here  and  driven  mad  with 
"Pauper  Dietaries"  and  Stoneyards !  When  I  was 
resting  and  idle  down  at  Hope's  I  got  as  well  and  plump 
as  possible, — here  I  get  physically  weak  and  depressed. 
All  is  going  on  well  in  the  parish,  and  we  are  just  putting 

up  a  new  school  for  our  poorer  children, — but 

I  met  Denison,  by-the-bye,  at  Stanley's.     He  is  a 

very  jolly,  simple-hearted  fellow.     Julian  the  Apostate, 

—he   says, — invented   the    Conscience   Clause   in   362, 


192  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Lingen  only  copied  it  in  1862.  Did  you  ever  come 
across  the  Imperial  Conscience  Clause  ? — Ever  yours, 
dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

BEDGEBURY,  KENT, 
January  23,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  E.  A.  F. — Don't  be  hard  on  my  poor 
middles.  I  am  not  frittering  myself  away,  for  I  never 
send  in  a  thing  of  that  sort  without  some  serious  paper 
with  real  work  in  it,  such  as  my  papers  on  East  End 
distress,  which  have  done  real  good.  And  secondly, 
as  Cook  urges,  one  ought  to  feel  a  certain  loyalty  to 
the  S.  R.,  and  it  absolutely  needs  "trivial  middles"  to 
keep  it  up  and  induce  people  to  read  our  weightier 
musings.  And  lastly  I  see  no  harm  in  writing  down 
mere  after-dinner  chaff,  requiring  no  thought  or  time, 
and  evidently  not  meant  to  be  taken  in  earnest. 

I  am  doing  a  good  deal  of  S.  R.  work  ;  this  week 
again  I  sent  in  three  articles  ;  and  I  have  very  heavy 
parochial  work  just  now  —  so  other  things  have  to 
wait,  and  I  am  very  glad  of  these  few  days'  outing. 
Hayward  is  down  here,  and  is  good  to  study,  he  talks 
very  well,  but  then  he  means  to  talk  very  well,  which 
spoils  it.  ... 

I  sent  a  paper  on  Cuthbert  to  a  thing  published  by 
the  Christian  Knowledge,  whose  Editor  is  a  friend  of 
mine  and  in  strait  for  papers.  At  the  close  I  spoke  of 
Durham  as  looking  down  on  the  Church  of  "  Selwyn 
and  Keble."  Spottiswoode's  folk  printed  it  "  Selwija 
and  Kebler "  ;  and  the  proof  went  to  a  Dr.  Curry, 
one  of  the  S.P.C.K.  swells,  who  wrote  thus:  "The 
names  of  Selwija  and  Kebler,  however  illustrious,  are 
hardly  sufficiently  familiar  to  the  general  reader  to  be 
mentioned  without  a  little  explanation  !  "  I  shall  have 
this  framed  and  glazed. 

When  are  you  coming  to  town  ? — Ever  yours,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  193 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
[May  1868]. 

[The  review  of  C.  H.  Pearson's  History  of  England 
during  the  Early  and  Middle  Ages^  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Review,  in  May  30,  1868.] 

DEAR  E.  A.  F.  —  I  have  spent  this  week  with 
Stubbs  at  Oxford,  and  have  been  much  mocked  at  by 
that  modern  Mabillon  as  "  polished  and  burnished " 
for  which  he  quotes  you.  I  really  must  try  and  do 
something  to  justify  your  praises  (which  sadly  need 
justification  in  the  eyes  of  common  men).  Hardy  is 
delighted  with  the  abuse  of  the  Rolls  folks,  because  it 
enables  him  to  tell  everybody  that  it  is  no  fault  of  the 
Rolls,  but  that  after  cutting  down  the  original  grant  by 
a  ^1000,  the  Treasury  have  actually  handed  over  a 
third  of  the  remainder  to  those  Scot  thieves. 

Oxford  is  a  most  enjoyable  place.  ...  A  charming 
place,  but  oh  !  so  idle  !  Even  I,  the  indolent  one,  am 
kindled  to  indignation  at  men  beginning  work  at  10  and 
ending  at  I,  taking  6  months'  holiday,  and  imagining 
they  have  no  need  for  new  reading  after  Baccalaurs.  I 
got  into  the  City  archives — saw  the  charter  of  John, 
and  the  Old  English  copy  (as  I  take  it  to  be)  of  the 
Charter  of  Henry  III.  ;  some  autograph  letters  of 
William  of  Wykeham,  etc.  But  what  with  dinners  and 
luncheons  and  walks  and  talks,  idlesse  was  too  much  for 
me,  and  I  did  no  more  of  all  the  things  I  meant  to  do. 

I  will  do  Pearson  this  week.  Concerning  my  plans, 
I  have  been  waiting  for  yours.  I  want  to  be  at 
Lincoln  to  preach  before  Venables  in  June  (iyth  or 
1 8th),  and  I  want  Hunt  to  come  up  here  at  once; 
but  I  want  to  go  oversea  with  you  and  do  Aungiers. 
Now  when  go  you,  and  how  go  you  ?  You  shall  do 
middles  on  the  buildings  and  the  battles,  and  I  will  do 
middles  on  the  beadles  and  the  sous-prefets,  and  so 
the  world  goes  round,  round,  round  ! 

My  outing  has  done  me  so  much  good  that  I  quite 


1 94  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

long    for    another,  —  Good-bye.       Ever    yours,    dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 
[Fragment  in  June  1868.] 

Thinking  over  your  paper  as  I  ran  away  to  Lincoln, 
I  wondered  whether  you  had  brought  out  in  all  its 
force  what  your  "Fight"  makes  me  feel  so  vividly,  I 
mean  England  and  Harold's  outlook  during  those 
terrible  six  months  before  the  two  battles, — two  great 
Armadas  getting  ready  at  once  from  two  different 
points  of  the  compass  to  sail  for  English  shores. 

Why  do  you  think  the  Barons  marched  to  the  fight 
of  the  Standard  ?  I  quote  the  Eastern  Morning  News 
— "  because  St.  Cuthbert  had  been  ravaging  the  land." 
However,  this  was  nothing  to  the  account  of  my 
"  startling  theories "  in  the  other  Hull  paper  which  I 
unfortunately  left  behind.  Hep  worth  Dixon  told  me 
that  he  really  could  not  agree  with  me  in  thinking 
that  there  was  nothing  but  Celtic  blood  north  of  the 
Humber.  Altogether  my  attempt  to  be  intelligible 
seems  to  have  been  a  great  success. 

Lincoln  is  wonderful.  I  am  simply  grateful  above 
measure  to  my  "  Constitutional  King "  Stephen  for 
choosing  as  the  scene  of  his  capture  those  low  slopes 
north  of  Foss-dyke  and  Witham,  with  the  great  steep 
behind  them,  and  Castle  and  Minster  looking  out  over 
all.  And  I  had  the  great  luck  of  falling  in  with  a 
local  antiquary  by  sheer  chance,  who  while  binding  the 
Corporation  charters  had  been  allowed  to  copy  them, 
as  well  as  a  Custumal  which  is  among  the  civic  docu- 
ments. The  first  charter  is  Henry  Second's,  but  it 
refers,  as  I  expected,  to  one  of  Henry  First's  ;  every 
step  I  take  confirms  my  theory  about  the  latter.  I 
think  the  "  law  men  "  go  down  to  John's  time.  Foss- 
dyke,  the  canal  which  joins  Witham  and  Trent  is 
credited  to  Henry  First ;  that  the  Lincoln  burghers 
should  have  carried  out  thirty  miles  of  canalising  gives 


II  CJLHK1UAL   UAKimK  195 

one  a  view  of  the  twelfth  century  and  its  industry  very 
different  from  ordinary  notions. — Good-bye,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Edward  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
August  6,  1868. 

[Denison  was  standing  for  Newark.] 

MY  DEAR  DENISON — Your  position  at  Newark  is 
wonderfully  like  mine  at  St.  Philip's,  and  if  one  made 
one's  position  in  this  world,  I  think  both  of  us  would 
deserve  a  good  whipping.  But  we  don't  make  'em  : 
we  step  into  them,  and  so  we  have  a  right  to  a  good 
grumble.  .  .  .  My  ignorance  of  Newark  is  complete. 
1  once  ate  a  bun  at  its  refreshment-room,  and  was  told 
over  the  counter  that  King  John  slept  in  a  four-poster 
in  the  chief  town  inn.  I  know  no  more  about  the 
place  than  that  great  historic  fact,  and  the  more 
modern  one  of  the  extreme  staleness  of  that  bun. 

I  am  most  unpopular  now  for  two  reasons  ;  first 
that  I  have  aided  vigorously  to  start  Newton  ;  secondly, 
that  on  Sunday  I  praught  a  sermon  on  the  sins  of 
electors — apathy,  immorality,  selfishness,  party-spirit, — 
which  hasn't  found  a  single  friend,  and  sent  the 
offertory  down  to  zero.  All  this  I  prophesied,  and  if 
only  their  irritation  sets  them  thinking  a  little  I  shan't 
object  to  their  irritation.  What  depresses  me  most  is 
the  low  tone  rather  than  the  wrong  tone  of  the  better 
men  here.  They  wouldn't  suffer  a  really  bad  man,  or 
pardon  his  advocating  a  really  bad  cause  ;  but  they 
have  no  objection  to  making  a  little  profit  over  the 
support  of  a  good  man,  nor  to  his  making  a  good 
thing  out  of  a  similar  course  in  local  or  national 
politics.  To  higher  arguments  they  are  utterly  in- 
sensible ;  I  could  not  help  feeling  how  differently  an 
audience  of  artisans  would  have  received  what  I  said 
last  Sunday.  Of  course  the  latter  have  their  faults, 
but  they  have  a  certain  enthusiasm  from  which  the 


196  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Mile  Ender  proper  is  wholly  free.  But  the  long  and 
short  of  it  is  that  I  am  in  a  false  position  here — that, 
like  you  at  Newark,  I  could  be  perfectly  comfortable 
with  the  Protestants  outside ;  while  my  Catholics  only 
back  me  because  my  preaching  amuses  them,  and 
because  they  can't  get  the  true  Catholic  ticket.  Only, 
thank  Heaven,  I  can  say  as  many  "  imprudent "  things 
as  I  please. 

I  am  awfully  tired  with  our  excursion  yesterday  to 
Rosherville  —  a  great  success  —  the  children  delighted, 
sunshine,  and  nobody  lost  or  hurt.  One  never  realises 
what  the  monotony  and  narrowness  of  the  life  and 
thoughts  of  the  ordinary  shopkeeper  is,  till  one  spends 
a  whole  day  in  the  midst  of  them,  as  one  does  on  the  ex- 
cursion day  once  a  year  ;  twice  a  year  it  would  kill  me. 
Luckily  I  have  immense  social  powers  with  these 
people,  and  they  all  voted  me  most  chatty  and  agree- 
able ;  but  the  blank  burthen  of  the  day  was  indescrib- 
able. I  retreated  from  it  coming  home  into  a  corner 
and  found  a  charming  little  maiden  of  17  who 
prattled  to  me  of  everything  in  heaven  and  earth, 
with  a  great  many  "  Mr.  Greens "  in  every  sentence. 
I  told  her  I  usually  carried  a  book  in  my  pocket  in 
case  I  had  nothing  to  do  for  half  an  hour.  "  Oh, 
yes,"  she  said,  "  I  suppose  it  is  the  Bible."  Ah,  me ! 
it  was  the  Physiologic  du  gout.  But  are  these  the 
thoughts  of  little  maidens  concerning  parsons — are  we 
ideals  with  perennial  Bibles  in  our  pockets  ? 

Forgive  this  long  chat  and  believe  me  yours 
ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET, 
August  19  (1868). 

[Morkere  and  Eadwine  are  the  Mercian  earls  to 
whom,  according  to  Freeman,  Green  was  too  favourable 
on  account  of  his  birth  at  Oxford.  Green's  Review  of 


ji  CLERICAL  CAREER  197 

Freeman's  Norman  Conquest  (vol.  ii.)  appeared  in   the 
Saturday  Review  for  August  15,  22,  and  29,  1868.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  It  is  too  late  for  to-day's 
post,  but  I  can't  put  your  book  aside  without  a  word. 
It  reached  me  last  night,  and  I  have  been  working  at 
it  to-day  ;  doing  the  Harold-Reign,  i.e.  the  accession 
to  April  and  the  Stamford  Bridge  chapter  for  my 
first  review.  The  William-life  and  Senlac  will  make  a 
second,  and  Harwood  must  give  me  a  third  for  the 
Inter-regnum  and  general  talk.  What  I  have  read  I 
think  up  to  your  best  mark.  I  remember  seeing  some 
proof  of  the  coronation  part  at  Cox's,  and  thinking 
it  too  long.  Either  you  have  condensed  it  or  I  was 
quite  wrong.  Indeed  the  one  change  I  should  have 
recommended  would  have  lengthened  it ;  i.e.  I  should 
for  the  general  reader's  sake  have  dwelt  much  more 
on  the  Investiture  part  of  the  Coronation  Service,  and 
worked  in  all  the  history  of  each  vestment  which  at 
present  you  have  left  in  the  references  of  your  notes. 
I  can't  quite  understand  your  theory  of  the  Chronicles ; 
I  think  you  unjust  to  the  Norman  writers  as  far  as 
the  Bequest  and  Election  are  concerned  ;  I  still  think 
you  a  perfect  monomaniac  on  the  subject  of  Morkere 
and  Eadwine.  But  I  will  forgive  you  even  sins  against 
my  own  Earls  for  having  brought  out  that  Northumbrian 
hesitation  to  accept  Harold  (/  had  never  noticed  //), 
—the  real  difficulties  of  Harold  in  that  long  wait  on  the 
coast, — and  the  moral  effect  of  the  Comet.  As  for 
Stamford  Bridge  I  am  almost  certain  I  shall  like  the 
style  of  your  battle-painting  better  here  than  when  I 
come  to  Senlac.  It  is  good  prose,  and  I  like  good 
prose  better  than  all  that  "  strenuous  "  prose  which  to 
my  ear  is  neither  prose  nor  poetry,  but  like  somebody 
holloaing.  However  I  shall  know  better  when  I  reach 
Senlac.  Moreover  your  telling  the  old  saga  and  then 
rejecting  it  and  giving  a  tale  which  is  a  great  deal 
better  because  it  is  truer,  is  the  best  moral  lesson  for 
young  history  beginners  I  ever  saw.  I  doubted  about 


198  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

the  saga  a  bit  when  you  read  it  to  me,  but  now  I 
read  it  in  print  I  see  you  were  quite  right;  it  is  a 
good  bit  of  relief  against  the  other  picture.  As  far  as 
I  have  gone  in  the  appendices  I  like  the  Tapestry  one 
best,  the  "  Bequest "  one  least  ;  it  is  too  "  special 
pleading"  in  tone,  and  Florence  is  worked  to  death. 
The  most  important  historical  discovery  seems  to  me 
to  be  your  suggestion  about  the  date  of  Harold's 
marriage.  I  feel  like  a  fool  for  not  having  thought  of 
it.  As  to  its  accuracy,  though  I  daresay  I  shall  find 
more  about  it  in  your  Norman  negotiation  part,  I  am 
simply  converted  to  an  intense  belief.  People  never 
write  sheer  nonsense,  and  I  see  what  sheer  nonsense 
those  Norman  statements  must  be  but  for  this.  How 
very  odd  they  never  suggested  it  to  one  before. 

As  to  Switzerland  I  simply  go  there  on  my  way  to 
Italy,  not  to  see  it  or  study  its  people,  but  simply  as 
a  concession  to  Brooke,  and  to  get  a  little  tone  and 
air.  Tou  shall  take  me  some  day  to  the  Landes- 
gemeinde.  At  present  I  am  thinking  more  of  Italian 
municipalities  than  of  Swiss.  But  I  would  much  I  had 
seen  the  Aldermen  of  Kenfig.  I  read  it  out  to  Bryce, 
and  we  both  voted  them  more  Italian  than  anything 
we  knew  in  England.  Who  is  A.  B.  ?  Was  he  a 
modern  history  first  ?  There  was  somebody  I  know 
got  a  modern  history  first  out  of  Jesus,  or  a  modern 
history  second  or  something  ;  I  know  it  cured  me  of 
any  wish  to  distinguish  myself  in  that  school.  Do 
you  know,  when  I  was  at  Oxford  last  term,  the  dons 
asked  me  to  dinner  and  Common  room,  and  positively 
crawled.  One  brute  who  bullied  me  into  an  illness 
years  ago  told  me  I  was  "  an  honour  to  my  College," 
and  God  knows  what !  And  then  you  wonder  that  I 
despise  Welshmen !  Let  me  put  you  up  to  a  secret. 
I  don't  love  Edward  First  (as  I  showed  t'other  day), 
but  I  wouldn't  abuse  him  so,  if  he  had  really  hung 
those  bards.  But  he  didn't. 

Good-bye.     I  am  so  glad  this  volume  is  out — you 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  199 

will  take  your  place  now.  What  a  stiff  business  you 
will  have  in  the  next.  I  don't  see  at  all  why  after  it 
you  should  not  give  us  the  history  of  the  two  Norman 
kings,  and  then  wind  up  with  a  sixth.  Think  over  it. 
Henry  I.  belongs  as  much  to  a  History  of  the  Conquest 
as  Cnut,  and  is  a  deal  better  worth  doing.  Amen  ! — 
Good-bye  again,  ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET  \_August  1868]. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — This  is  simply  to  tell  you 
I  have  done  it — appendices  and  all — and  vote  for  the 
greatest  living  historian  we  have.  Not  that  that  will 
astonish  you, — or  that  if  I  say  it  as  I  shall  in  print  you 
will  do  anything  but  write  an  immensely  long  letter 
blowing  me  up  !  But  never  mind,  that  "  Senlac "  is 
magnificent.  It  isn't  a  bit  overdone  ;  and  I  won't  say 
anything  more  irreverent  about  "  holloaing  in  a  wood." 
When  edition  2  comes,  run  your  pen  through  two- 
thirds  of  the  "  Now  "s  and  three  -  quarters  of  the 
"Then"s.  The  first  always  makes  me  think  you 
have  just  awoke  from  a  five  minutes'  nap  and  set  to 
again  ;  the  second  is  what  I  call  "  the  showman's 
demonstrative."  As  to  the  Earls  you  are  as  mad  as 
a  hatter  or  else  all  England  was  as  mad  as  a  hatter  ; 
and  as  to  Florence  I  can  fancy  that  libellous  shaven-pate 
patting  his  paunch  in  Purgatory  and  saying,  "  Tell  a 
lie — tell  a  lie — tell — a — lie,  and  in  some  seven  centuries 
you  will  at  last  get  a  swell  to  believe  it." 

But  never  mind — you  -are  the  Gl-  Hn-  now  living, 
and  you  have  a  right  to  be  as  mad  as  a  hatter,  and  to 
believe  what  you  please.  Q.E.D. — Good-bye. 

J.  R.  G. 

Love  to  old  Dax.  Tell  him  I  have  got  his  bank- 
book, and  his  balance  is  preposterous  ! 


200  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  have  just  read  the  Edin- 
burgh article  on  your  first  two  volumes  :  is  it  Cox's  ? 
Anyhow  and  whosesoever  it  is,  although  /  believe  it  is 
•written  with  good  will^  it  is  very  lop-sided  and  unfair 
in  its  merely  negative  tone.  I  don't  know  that  there 
are  many  flaws  pointed  out  which  I  hadn't  pointed  out 
before,  but  I  aimed  certainly  at  pointing  out  the  merits 
of  the  book  as  well,  and  about  these  the  article  says 
very  little  indeed,  although  it  gives  one  the  notion  of 
its  writer  really  appreciating  them  in  some  latent  way. 
Moreover  there  is  a  good  deal  of  ignorance  in  his 
censuring  the  very  best  point  in  your  book — I  mean 
your  taking  the  Conquest  out  of  the  category  of  isolated 
events  and  showing  its  beginnings  in  Cnut,  Robert, 
etc.  So  too  in  what  he  says  about  the  Apulian  Con- 
quest. What,  again,  does  he  mean  by  "  the  mythical 
times  of  Hengist  and  Rowena  "  ? 

Of  course  I  adhere  to  all  I  said  of  old  about  style, 
etc.,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  on  that  point  very 
soundly  put  in  the  article ;  but  it  is  most  unfortunate 
that  it  should  have  come  out  just  before  your  "  Battle  " 
volume.  It  has  half  set  me  longing  (in  spite  of  my 
vows)  to  do  that  and  its  predecessor  for  some  Quarterly 
— "  the  "  Quarterly  perhaps  which  has  done  nought  of 
you  since  the  first  volume.  What  do  you  say  ? 

Anyhow,  I  just  wanted  to  say  this,  my  dear  Free- 
man (baited  thereunto  by  the  Edinburgh)^  that  there 
are  no  books  oftener  in  my  hands  than  yours  ;  and 
that  without  a  bit  recanting  what  I  said  at  first 
about  them  my  admiration  for  them  grows  every 
day.  Thai's  the  best  way  to  test  a  book,  see  how  it 
wears  when  you  work  at  it ;  and  yours  wears  well.  I 
wish  I  was  down  with  you  to  talk  over  these  matters 
— it's  poor  work  writing.  .  .  . 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  201 

Comfort  yourself  concerning  Charles  Kingsley.  Like 
Nebuchadnezzar  he  has  gone  to  grass — has  abandoned 
history  and  taken  to  Botany  and  the  sciences.  Sic 
pereant  inimici  Domini  !  The  rumour  of  his  resignation 
of  the  professorship  is  true  enough.  Is  there  anything 
to  prevent  your  going  in  for  it  ? — it  isn't  confined  to 
Cambridge  men  so  far  as  I  can  gather  ;  and  if  it  were, 
a  guinea  ad  eundem  would  settle  the  difficulty.  You  see, 
it  isn't  likely  that  Stubbs  will  go  into  the  sixth  heaven 
of  Deaneries  now.  .  .  . 

Good-bye  ;  forgive  me  all  my  trespasses  as  you 
hope  to  be  forgiven  and  believe  me,  my  dear  Freeman, 
yours  in  all  loyalty,  J.  R.  G. 


To  Edward  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
September  21,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  DENISON — Higgs  has  been  here  this 
morning  with  a  sheaf  of  your  speeches,  and  left  my 
conscience  sore  with  remembrances  of  a  certain  un- 
answered letter.  What  a  thriving  business  you  seem 
to  be  doing  at  Newark,  with  your  bodyguard  of  work- 
ing men  and  "  lady  canvassers  "  seducing  the  immaculate 
voter  !  I  am  really  delighted,  though  I  fully  expected 
it.  So  far  as  I  see  anything  of  them  here,  they  seem 
more  sensible  and  less  of  the  potwalloper  type  than  I 
had  looked  for.  My  cowardice  was  a  little  frightened 
at  first  by  your  plainness  of  speech  ;  but  it  seems  to 
pay,  which  brightens  one's  views  of  human  nature  a 
little.  Anyhow,  as  far  as  the  papers  go,  your  pro- 
spects seem  encouraging  enough.  Here  we  are  in  the 
most  awful  political  muddle.  Beales  I  take  to  be  a 
certain  M.P.,  the  working  men  backing  him  en  masse ; 
Ayrton  and  Samuda  to  be  quite  out  of  the  running, 
Coope  having  spoilt  Samuda's  and  Newton  Ayrton's 
chance.  But  both  will  go  to  the  poll,  and  if  they 
do  it  will  be  a  very  difficult  business  to  get  Newton 


202  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

in  and  keep  Coope  out.  Beales  and  a  Tory  for 
the  Tower  Hamlets  will  set  all  the  ingenious  Morleys 
and  Huttons  speculating  for  months  on  the  "  new 
constituencies." 

Higgs  is  certainly  getting  your  roughs  into  smooth 
habits.  I  think  the  school  is  going  on  well.  I  have 
been  down  there  this  morning  to  see  whether  I  could 
inveigle  the  other  trustees  into  allowing  me  to  use  the 
back  room  two  mornings  in  the  week  for  a  sick-kitchen. 
A  grate  in  the  empty  fireplace  and  the  use  of  your 
soup  apparatus  would  be  all  that  I  want.  Higgs  could 
manage  to  leave  us  the  little  room  on  Wednesday 
mornings,  and  on  Saturday  it  is  of  course  free.  My 
new  nurse  will  do  all  the  work  ;  and  I  think  the  money 
would  do  more  good  than  it  does  now  in  tickets.  I 
hope  you  haven't  forgotten  my  prayer  for  a  "  lady 
visitor."  I  will  take  all  the  work  off  her  hands,  if  only 
I  may  rest  sub  nominis  umbra.  We  must  get  up  Penny 
Readings  (without  the  penny)  through  the  winter  at  the 
school  church.  I  have  plenty  of  help  promised,  and 
you  must  come  and  read  Pickwick  as  an  M.P.  Oh  !  if 
one  might  only  put  it  on  the  bills. 

I  am  buried  in  corn  and  flowers  ;  our  harvest  festival 
is  on  Thursday.  If  I  knew  your  people  better  I  would 
ask  them  to  send  me  flowers.  But  I  really  am  grow- 
ing the  mendicant  "parson,"  whom  I  am  so  fond  of 
squibbing. 

Good-bye,  with  best  wishes  for  your  success  at 
Newark. — Believe  me,  faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Edward  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
October  18,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  DENISON —  ...  I  am  mighty  uneasy 
about  the  look  of  things.  Here  we  are,  no  forwarder 
than  last  autumn,  and  though  business  is  brisker  people 
have  got  more  habituated  to  mendicancy.  The  parsons 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  203 

of  our  rural  deanery  held  a  meeting  about  it  on  Tues- 
day. Unhappily  my  confinement  in  town  has  told  on 
my  head,  etc.,  and  I  was  obliged  to  run  out  if  for  a  few 
days.  I  had  half  a  mind  to  run  down  to  Newark  and 
see  what  you  were  doing  ;  however  I  went  to  Essex 
instead,  and  am  better  now.  It  is  these  money-matters 
which  wear  my  life  out.  Imagine  the  end  of  our 
school  year  coming,  and  my  having  to  pay  out  of  pocket 
a  deficiency  of  £43.  It  simply  leaves  me  without  a 
penny.  Do  forgive  my  groaning.  I  put  as  bright  a 
face  on  it  as  I  can  in  the  parish,  but  these  incessant 
money-worries  simply  kill  all  vigour  of  life  and  thought 
in  me.  How  can  I  do  my  book  when  this  next  quarter 
to  escape  bankruptcy  I  shall  have  to  send  in  every 
week  two  articles  to  the  S.  R.,  and  write  an  article  for 
the  Quarterly,  besides  my  parochial  engagements  ?  I 
think  my  pride  must  have  come  down  in  the  world 
when  I  actually  asked  a  man  for  a  living  the  other  day. 
However  it  went  elsewhere — to  a  very  good  and  fit 
fellow. 

By-the-bye  —  as  you  are  a  prisoner  at  Newark — 
might  we  put  in  the  grate  you  purposed  in  the  Baker 
Street  school  ?  I  am  anxious  to  set  about  our  soup- 
kitchen  at  once,  and  to  break  finally  with  the  "  meat- 
tickets."  It  will  be  a  great  economy  and  a  better 
principle. 

I  heard  good  news  about  you  from  Newark  itself. 
A  schoolfellow  of  my  sister's  (Tory  people)  writes  to 
her  that  they  regard  you  as  a  "second  Gladstone." 
Take  care  not  to  be  a  Judas  Iscariot  like  your  illustrious 
first.  Here  Newton's  chances  have  gone  backwards  ; 
the  artizans  rallying  round  Beales,  and  the  Beales's  party 
breaking  thoroughly  with  Newton.  ...  A  certain 
Potts,  a  Limehouse  grocer,  proclaims  his  secesh  from 
Newton  "  in  consequence  of  his  alliance  with  a  Puseyite 
priest."  The  Tower  Hamlets  Advertiser  sarcastically 
adds,  "  The  friends  of  the  reverend  gentleman  declare 
the  charge  to  be  unfounded !  "  You  see  what  Glad- 


204  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

stone  is  and  what  I  am.     What  are  you  ?     Good-bye  ; 
all  possible  good  wishes. — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Daw  kins 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
October  20,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  DAWKINS —  .  .  .  The  most  amazing 
thing  which  has  happened  to  me  since  I  saw  you  is  a 
sermon  which  Haweis  praught  at  a  church  hard  by 
here  on  "Apathy  on  Politics."  It  was  the  first  of  a 
course  in  which  I  am  to  figure  ;  and  although  we  had 
agreed  that  party  politics,  as  such,  were  to  be  excluded, 
and  only  the  general  principles  urged  upon  which  all 
political  life — if  it  be  sound — must  rest,  H.  R.  H.  got 
up  and  for  an  hour  delivered  a  wild  platform  speech  in 
favour  of  Red  Republicanism  and  Beales.  There  was 
a  great  slamming  of  pew  doors,  and  the  whole  scene 

was  chaos.     What  the I  am  to  say  next  Sunday 

heaven  only  knows. —  .  .  .  Ever  yours  faithfully, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Edward  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
October  27,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  DENISON — I  ought  at  once  to  have 
acknowledged  the  receipt  of  your  cheque,  and  to  have 
thanked  you  for  kindness  so  considerate.  What  you 
say  of  the  parish  is  perfectly  true,  but  I  find  it  easier 
to  get  money  for  anything  than  for  schools.  What 
between  the  parsons  and  the  Government  grant  all 
sense  of  local  responsibility  seems  to  have  disappeared. 
I  am  however  going  to  make  my  third  trial,  and  to 
call  together  a  private  meeting  before  formally  canvass- 
ing the  neighbourhood.  What  I  should  have  done 
but  for  you  I  really  hardly  know.  But  those  school 
accounts  once  cleared  off"  (as  they  are)  I  see  my  way  as 
I  haven't  seen  it  for  months. 


ii  CLERICAL  CAREER  205 

Could  you  throw  into  shape  your  thoughts  on  the 
lessons  taught  by  the  French  relief  system  and  our  own 
as  to  the  question  you  hint  at  in  your  paper,  viz.  the 
advisability  of  leaving  pauperism  to  the  common  social 
conditions  of  pity,  etc.,  rather  than  of  any  organization, 
legal  or  charitable  ?  Is  not  this  your  contention  ?— 
Ever  yours,  in  great  hurry,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  Edward  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
November  19,  1868. 

MY  DEAR  DENISON — I  need  not  tell  you  how 
heartily  I  congratulate  you  on  your  election.  It  is  in 
fact  the  one  cheering  fact  for  me  personally  in  the 
whole  business.  So  far  as  the  men  I  care  about  are 
concerned,  with  the  exception  of  Fawcett  and  Somerset 
Beaumont,  Newark  is  the  only  place  where  I  have  not 
had  a  sound  beating.  The  last  was  a  Palmerstonian 
Parliament,  but  this  out  -  Palmerstons  Palmerston. 
"  No  philosophers,  no  artizans,"  seems  to  have  been  the 
winning  cry. 

Here  at  the  last  moment  every  one  rushed  to  Ayrton 
and  left  Newton  in  the  gutter.  The  votes  he  actually 
polled  were  really  Tory  votes,  and  would  have  gone  to 
Coope  had  he  retired.  Samuda  goes  in  by  the  force  of 
the  same  Liberal  shop -keeping  class  which  returned 
Butler  at  the  last  election,  and  by  the  force  of  the  higher 
artizans,  shipbuilders,  and  the  like,  "  Demos,"  as  Fowle 
called  it,  all  below  the  upper  artizan  went  en  masse  for 
Beales.  Coope's  7000  are,  to  me,  a  very  real  and 
astounding  fact, — not  less  so  than  my  discovery  that 
had  it  been  a  contest  between  Coope  and  Beales,  |-  of 
the  Samuda  voters  would  have  gone  to  the  Tory.  The 
fact  is  the  governance  of  England  is  still  in  the  same 
shop-keeping  hands,  and  their  sympathies  are  just  where 
they  were,  with  a  quiet  Liberalism  which  changes  as 
little  as  possible.  In  other  words,  I  expect  nothing  from 
the  next  Parliament. 


206  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

But  it  is  an  immense  pleasure  to  think  that  one  M.P. 
at  least  is  not  an  elderly  soap-boiler,  and  that  if  not  a 
pessimist  as  I  am  you  are  at  any  rate  not  a  middle-class 
optimist.  I  suspect  you  are  the  one  person  in  the  bank 
who  knows  and  can  grapple  with  that  ghost  of  Pauper- 
ism which  is  destined  to  trouble  the  slumbers  of  a 
Palmerstonian  St.  Stephen's. 

Good-bye, — I  have  written  a  cool  letter,  as  I  usually 
do  when  I  am  most  delighted  ;  but  you  will  understand 
it. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  Denison 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January  8,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  DENISON —  ...  I  suppose  you  will 
hardly  be  back  till  the  next  session  sees  John  Bright  on 
the  ministerial  bench.  It  is  possible  that  by  that  time 
my  plans  may  be  fixed  :  they  are  very  hazy  now,— 
a  possible  appointment  at  King's  College  looming  in 
the  distance.  I  have  a  great  wish  not  to  part  cable 
altogether, — the  hold  the  Church  has  over  me,  however 
slight,  is  a  really  healthy  hold  to  a  mind  like  mine. 
Moreover,  I  have  still  a  great  faith  in  the  capacity  of 
Ecclesia  Anglicana  to  meet  the  national  requirements  of 
England  in  a  way  that  no  sectional  action  can  do.  And 
then,  too,  there  is  the  feeling  of  honour  which  tells 
against  quitting  a  ship  when  she  looks  as  if  she  were 
getting  into  rough  water. 

I  can't  tell  you  with  what  hope  I  look  forward  to 
your  future, — not  the  immediate  future,  for  men  will 
go  on  eating  and  drinking  till  the  flood  comes, — but 
when  the  flood  does  come.  And  come  it  will. — Ever 
yours  faithfully,  my  dear  Denison,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


n  CLERICAL  CAREER  207 


MY  DAUGHTERS  ON  THE  BEACH 

[These  verses  are  undated.  They  refer  to  the  daughters  of 
Mr.  Stopford  Brooke,  who  was  one  of  his  oldest  and  warmest 
friends,  and  in  whose  house  he  was  hospitably  received  in  periods 
of  illness  and  depression.] 

Pretty  rosy  legs 
Paddling  in  the  waters  ; 
Knees  as  smooth  as  eggs, 
Belonging  to  my  daughters  ! 
Sixty  toes  are  twiddling 
In  the  sandy  ocean, 
And  six  hearts  are  fiddling 
With  a  child's  emotion. 
All  of  them  are  pushing, 
Shrimping  nets  before  them  : 
Thoughts  of  tea  are  rushing 
Like  the  sea-waves  o'er  them  ; 
Tea  with  shrimps  and  butter 
Toast  and  water-cresses  ; 
Hearts  in  such  a  flutter 
In  their  holland  dresses. 
As  ten  feet  come  plashing 
Through  the  brimy  billow, 
See  the  crabs  go  splashing 
Each  to  seek  its  pillow, 
And  the  tiny  fishes 
That  would  a-wooing  stray 
'Gainst  their  mothers'  wishes 
Much  frightened,  fly  away. 

0  who  would  not  sorrow ; 
He  would  be  a  stock  else  ! 
When  said  Maud,  "  To-morrow 

1  shall  hunt  for  cockles." 
All  the  cockles  shivered 
When  they  heard  her  talking  ; 
Closed  their  shells  and  quivered, 
And  gave  up  their  walking. 

Then  each  little  maiden 
Trotted  to  her  dwelling  ; 
All  their  baskets  laden, 
All  their  bosoms  swelling  : 
Honor  led  the  marching, 


208  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN       PART  n 

Maud  came  proudly  after  ; 

Evelyn  walked,  arching 

Her  pretty  head  with  laughter  : 

Then  was  Olive  smiling, 

Little  girl  so  funny  ; 

Sybil  most  beguiling, 

Smiles  as  sweet  as  honey  ; 

Rosalind,  whose  pleasure 

Was  to  laugh  for  ever  ; 

In  her  baby  leisure 

Touched  with  sorrow  never. 

Home  they  came  enraptured, 
And  arranged  the  table  ; 
Boiled  the  shrimps  they  captured, 
Ate  while  they  were  able  ; 
Had  a  romp  uproarious 
With  the  chairs  and  dishes  ; 
Stripped  and  took  a  glorious 
Bath  like  little  fishes  ; 
And  at  last  quite  cosy 
Laid  upon  the  pillow, 
All  their  cheeks  so  rosy — 
Dreaming  of  the  billow 
And  the  ripple  argent, 
Where  the  foam  had  motion, 
On  the  sandy  margent 
'Twixt  the  rocks  and  ocean, 
And  of  water  playing 
Round  their  ancles  tiny  ; 
And  of  next  day  slaying 
Shrimps  and  urchins  spiny  ; 
Crabs  and  cockles  hiding 
In  the  rippled  ridges, 
And  sea-flowers  abiding 
Underneath  rock  edges. 
So  they  lay  a-dreaming 
Pleasures  without  number  ; 
Till  the  day-light  streaming 
Roused  them  from  their  slumber. 
To  the  beach  and  waters 
They  again  descended  ; 
For  my  six  young  daughters, 
Thus  my  lay  is  ended. 


PART   III 

THE  "SHORT  HISTORY" 

THE  following  series  of  letters  belongs  to  the  period 
(1869-1874)  during  which  Green  wrote  the  Short 
History.  When  the  strain  of  clerical  duty  was  finally 
taken  off,  he  intended  to  devote  himself  to  the  history 
of  England  under  the  Angevin  Kings.  He  was,  mean- 
while, to  support  himself  chiefly  by  contributions  to  the 
Saturday  Review.  Towards  the  end  of  1869,  however, 
he  had  to  consult  Sir  Andrew  Clark.  The  diagnosis 
revealed  a  very  serious  condition  of  his  lungs.  Clark  in 
fact  told  him  a  year  later  that  it  had  been  so  serious  that 
arrest  of  the  disease  seemed  improbable.  Green  learnt 
enough  to  be  aware  that  his  life  was  precarious.  He 
resolved  to  write  a  book,  which  if  he  lived  would  serve 
as  an  introduction  to  future  work,  and  ensure  that,  if 
he  should  die,  his  labours  should  not  have  been  entirely 
wasted.  He  was  already  known  to  Alexander 
Macmillan,  who  became  a  warm  friend  and  who  ap- 
preciated his  talents.  Macmillan  now  agreed  to  pay 
him  ^350  for  the  book  to  be  written  with  further 
payment  in  case  of  its  success.  This  enabled  Green  to 
set  to  work,  and,  though  he  still  wrote  occasional 
articles,  the  composition  of  the  Short  History  became 
the  main  task  of  his  life.  He  laboured  with  singular 
energy  during  the  next  five  years.  The  state  of  his 
health  frequently  disabled  him,  and  caused  occasional 


210  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

fits  of  depression.  He  was  compelled  to  go  abroad 
during  the  winter,  and  had  therefore  often  to  work  at  a 
distance  from  English  libraries,  and  under  the  incon- 
veniences of  hotel  life.  He  had  discouragements  of  a 
trying  kind.  He  showed  the  work  as  it  went  on  to 
various  advisers,  and  their  judgments  were  by  no 
means  uniformly  favourable.  "  He  never  forgot,"  says 
Mrs.  Green,  "  that  during  this  time  there  were  two 
friends,  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke  and  his  publisher,  who 
were  unvarying  in  their  belief  in  his  work,  and  hope- 
fulness of  the  result."  It  will  be  seen  that  Freeman, 
too,  encouraged  him  at  a  critical  point  when  an  unfav- 
ourable estimate  had  caused  misgivings.  Freeman, 
however,  shared  the  objection  which  seems  to  have  been 
most  generally  felt.  His  friends  thought,  says  Mr. 
Bryce,  that  he  had  contracted  too  much  of  the  Saturday 
Review  style.  He  was  writing  a  series  of  brilliant 
articles  rather  than  a  continuous  narrative.  He  was  him- 
self so  far  sensible  of  some  truth  in  this  that  he  cancelled 
a  great  deal  that  had  been  stereotyped  and  rewrote  the 
whole,  "re-creating,  with  his  passionate  facility,  his 
whole  style."  He  gave  up  the  Saturday  Review, 
though  he  could  ill  spare  the  loss,  to  master  the  task  ; 
and  revised  and  corrected  until  his  friends  at  last  com- 
plained that  he  was  too  fastidious  and  induced  him  to 
bring  out  the  book.  While  admitting,  however,  that 
there  was  some  ground  for  their  criticism,  he  could  not 
have  accepted  it  unreservedly  without  abandoning  his 
whole  conception  of  history.  His  critics  had  in  their 
minds  a  manual  for  schools.  Such  a  book,  they  thought, 
should  adhere  closely  to  chronological  order,  give  direct 
statements  of  dates  and  events  ;  and  hold  by  the  con- 
ventional landmarks,  the  battles  and  personal  incidents 
which  determine  the  lines  of  an  ordinary  history.  They 
complained,  therefore,  that  Green  often  omitted  such 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  211 

facts  or  alluded  to  them  indirectly;  that  the  student 
would  be  at  a  loss  in  an  arrangement  which  occasionally 
disregarded  the  division  by  reigns  ;  and  in  short,  as 
Freeman  put  it,  that  the  book  would  be  useful  to  those 
who  had  already  considerable  knowledge  of  history,  but 
would  not  provide  the  ignorant  with  elementary  know- 
ledge. Green  was  opposed  to  this  view  on  principle. 
It  was  his  aim,  as  he  said  in  his  preface,  to  pass  briefly 
over  many  of  the  incidents  which  constitute  the  main 
staple  of  the  old  histories,  the  court  intrigues,  wars,  and 
diplomacies,  and  to  bring  out  "  the  incidents  of  consti- 
tutional, intellectual,  and  social  advance,  in  which  we 
read  the  history  of  the  nation  itself."  He  strove  never 
to  sink — as  he  said  in  a  phrase  which  has  become  popular 
—into  a  mere  "  drum  and  trumpet  history."  This  aim 
involved  a  new  grouping  of  his  materials.  The  strong 
sense  of  literary  form,  which  is  conspicuous  in  all  his 
work,  led  him  to  bring  together  topics,  which,  if  treated 
at  all,  are  broken  up  and  become  discontinuous  on  the 
old  system.  He  wished  to  bring  out  the  unity  and 
continuity  of  great  religious  or  literary  movements  or 
of  economic  changes,  such  as  the  growth  of  town  life, 
in  which  the  leading  moments  are  not  defined  by  the 
accession  of  kings  or  the  event  of  battles.  The  narra- 
tive had,  to  a  great  extent,  to  be  reorganised  ;  and  the 
stress  laid  upon  a  different  series  of  events.  It  was  im- 
possible, therefore,  that  Green  should  fully  satisfy  critics 
who  desiderated  a  manual  on  the  old  model.  Green 
had,  in  fact,  written  something  quite  different,  and 
something  which,  as  Freeman  cordially  admitted,  was 
admirable  from  his  own  point  of  view.  He  had  written, 
within  a  brief  compass,  nothing  less  than  the  first  history 
of  England  which  would  enable  his  countrymen  to  gain 
a  vivid  and  continuous  perception  of  the  great  processes 
by  which  the  nation  had  been  built  up  ;  and  which  had 


212  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

been  overlooked  or  incidentally  noticed  in  the  histories 
which  adhere  rigidly  to  sequences  of  outward  political 
fact.  Green's  own  view  is  given  in  some  of  the  follow- 
ing letters.  I  have  said  so  much  because  the  funda- 
mental difference  of  view  may  explain  why  he  had  to 
meet  discouraging  criticism.  He  took  it  with  admirable 
candour,  and  endeavoured  to  profit  by  it  as  far  as  it  was 
consistent  with  his  aims.  The  extraordinary  courage 
and  energy  with  which,  in  spite  of  ill-health,  distracting 
circumstances,  and  doubtful  approval  from  his  friends, 
he  managed  to  carry  out  the  task  which  he  had  set  him- 
self, will  best  appear  from  the  letters. 

The  success  was  remarkable  enough  in  itself.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  mention  any  case  in  which  an 
achievement  at  all  comparable  has  been  accomplished  in 
the  teeth  of  such  serious  obstacles.  The  letters  suggest 
other  points,  which  may  be  made  clearer  by  a  few 
comments. 

Green's  first  visit  to  the  continent  was  in  1867, 
when  he  accompanied  Freeman  on  a  tour  to  Normandy. 
In  1868  they  paid  a  visit  to  Anjou.  "  It  was  a  wonder- 
ful process,"  says  Freeman,  "  to  go  through  such  places 
vvith  such  a  man,  each  of  us  studying  for  his  own  ends, 
ends  which  had  so  much  in  common."  In  the  autumn 
of  1869  he  went  with  the  Stopford  Brookes  through 
Switzerland,  and  had  his  first  sight  of  Italy,  coming 
back,  he  says,  with  a  new  sense  of  the  beauty  of  the 
world.  In  1870  he  made  his  first  journey  in  search  of 
health,  and  spent  the  winter  mainly  at  San  Remo. 
The  winter  of  1871-72  was  again  spent  at  San  Remo, 
Freeman  accompanying  him  on  the  outward  journey 
through  Germany  to  Venice  and  Ravenna.  In  1872  he 
joined  the  Stopford  Brookes  at  Florence,  and  thence  went 
by  Rome  and  Naples  to  Capri,  where  he  passed  the 
winter,  visiting  Rome  again  on  his  return.  The  last 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  213 

winter  before  the  completion  of  his  book  (1873-74)  was 
spent  in  London.  He  was  living  at  5  Beaumont 
Street,  Marylebone,  where  he  took  lodgings  after 
leaving  Stepney. 

Green  had  one  disqualification  as  a  traveller.  He 
had  no  facility  in  learning  languages.  Although  his 
memory  for  facts  and  for  the  substance  of  books 
was  remarkably  strong,  his  verbal  memory  was  weak. 
This  was  a  hindrance  to  him  in  his  classical  studies, 
and  probably  accounts  for  this  linguistic  weakness.  He 
could,  of  course,  read  French,  but  never  learnt  to  speak 
it  fluently.  Of  German,  according  to  Mr.  Bryce,  he  was 
quite  ignorant,  though  he  had  certainly  read  some 
Goethe  at  college.  He  learnt  Italian  at  San  Remo  in 
order  to  read  Dante,  but  could  only  talk  it  sufficiently 
for  hotel  purposes.  Yet  his  joy  in  taking  in  fresh 
impressions  enabled  him  to  turn  every  journey  to  the 
fullest  account.  Fellow-travellers  describe  him  as  the 
most  delightful  of  companions.  He  was  interested  in  the 
physical  characteristics  of  the  country — in  the  people, 
in  the  politics,  and  in  the  strangers  whom  he  met.  In 
the  railway  carriage  he  was  always  springing  from  one 
side  to  the  other  to  catch  new  aspects  of  the  country. 
He  bought  all  the  newspapers,  of  which  he  was  an 
insatiable  reader  to  the  last.  He  could  "  squeeze  all 
the  juice  out  of  a  paper,"  says  Mr.  Bryce,  "  in  a  few 
minutes."  He  was,  at  the  same  time,  reading  a  book 
and  keeping  up  a  lively  conversation  with  his  friends. 
He  had,  at  all  times,  a  singular  power  of  concentrating 
his  attention  so  as  to  read  a  book  by  pages  at  a  glance. 
Mr.  Loftie  tells  how  he  looked  casually  at  an  essay 
while  keeping  up  a  lively  conversation  with  some  ladies, 
and  afterwards  showed  that  he  had  absorbed  its  con- 
tents, and  formed  an  opinion  upon  its  merits.  This 
amazing  intellectual  agility  enabled  him,  it  seems,  like 


2i4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

a  juggler,  to  keep  up  several  balls  in  the  air  at  once. 
He  was  constantly  imbibing  and  communicating  all  the 
complex  impressions  of  a  journey.  Many  indications  of 
this  faculty  will  appear  in  these  letters.  They  illustrate, 
in  particular,  one  characteristic — his  intense  interest  in 
the  history  of  towns.  Mr.  Bryce  tells  how  he  reached 
the  town  of  Troyes  early  one  morning  with  his  friends. 
He  explored  it,  "  darting  hither  and  thither  through 
the  streets,  like  a  dog  following  a  scent !  "  In  two 
hours  the  work  was  done.  In  the  afternoon  the  party 
started  for  Bale,  reached  it  late,  and  went  to  bed. 
Green  brought  down  to  breakfast  next  morning  an 
article  upon  Troyes,  describing  its  characteristics,  and 
tracing  its  connection  with  the  Counts  of  Champagne 
during  some  centuries.  He  then  walked  with  his  friends 
through  Bale  ;  and  Green,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
gave  them  an  equally  vivid  history  of  the  town,  though 
he  was  seeing  both  places  for  the  first  time,  and  had 
made  no  special  preparation.  "  He  could  apparently 
have  done  the  same  for  any  other  town  in  France  or 
the  Rhineland."  Another  anecdote  tells  how  he  was 
called  upon,  quite  unexpectedly,  to  speak  at  an  archaeo- 
logical meeting  of  the  history  of  some  English  town 
(Bury  St.  Edmunds,  I  believe).  He  rose  at  once,  and 
delivered  an  address  of  more  than  a  hour,  giving  a 
brilliant  account  in  perfect  form  of  the  history  of  the 
town  and  its  relations  to  the  abbots  or  barons. 

Freeman  was  especially  impressed  by  Green's  powers 
in  this  direction  during  their  Italian  tour.  "  It  was," 
he  says,  "  delightful  to  be  with  him  ;  it  was  delightful 
to  listen  and  learn  from  him.  ...  It  is  needless  to  say 
what  were  Green's  primary  objects  in  Italy.  Here  was 
municipality  on  its  grandest  scale.  Never  was  he  so 
thoroughly  at  home  as  in  the  stately  town-house  of  an 
Italian  city.  One  of  the  great  days  of  one's  life  was 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  215 

the  day  when  I  first  went  to  Ravenna  with  such  a  com- 
panion. .  .  .  And  well  I  remember  how  we  stood,  side 
by  side,  before  the  tomb  of  Henry  VII.  in  the  Holy 
Field  of  Pisa."  Freeman,  in  his  quaint  fashion,  ever 
afterwards  spoke  of  the  town-houses  as  "Johnny  Houses," 
to  commemorate  Green's  revelation  of  their  interest. 
"  And  now,  O  Johnny,"  he  says,  in  a  letter  ten  years 
afterwards,  "as  I  have  been  rambling  over  endless 
cities,  telling  the  towers  thereof,  Jet  me  once  more 
thank  you  for  having  first  taught  me  to  do  a  town 
as  something  having  a  being  of  itself,  apart  from  the 
churches,  castles,  etc.,  within  it.  I  have  given  you 
thanksgiving  in  a  preface,  but  you  deserve  another  every 
time  I  go  over  such  a  place." 

Freeman  remarks  that  Green's  visits  to  Italy  had  a 
marked  effect  upon  him.  They  widened  his  concep- 
tions of  history.  His  dislike  to  the  Oxford  system  had 
led  him  to  undervalue  the  importance  of  the  histories 
of  classical  Greece  and  Italy  in  their  bearing  upon  more 
recent  periods.  The  sojourn  in  Italy  removed  this 
limitation.  On  the  other  hand,  Freeman  complains 
that  his  enthusiasm  carried  him  too  far.  He  learnt 
to  "  despise  English  things  and  Teutonic  things  in 
general "  ;  and  Freeman,  therefore,  looked  upon  him 
as  a  wanderer  from  the  Teutonic  fold.  "  His  nature 
was,  in  fact,"  says  Freeman,  "rather  Southern  than 
Teutonic,"  and  he  found  the  social  as  well  as  the 
physical  atmosphere  of  Italy  more  congenial  than  his 
own.  Green's  letters  indicate  his  own  view  of  this 
change  of  feeling,  which  to  Freeman  appeared  to  be 
a  desertion.  It  may  be  doubted  how  far  Green's  love 
of  Italy  was  due  to  the  want  of  a  Teutonic  element  in 
his  nature.  So  many  Englishmen  of  genius  from  the 
days  of  Chaucer  to  those  of  Browning  have  been  pro- 
foundly impressed  by  Italian  travel,  that  sensibility  to 


2i6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

such  influences  might  be  claimed  as  a  specially  English 
characteristic.  In  any  case,  the  impression  made  upon 
Green  was  undoubtedly  as  profound  and  enduring  as  it 
was  natural.  An  intense  delight  in  the  beautiful  was 
one  of  his  most  conspicuous  qualities.  During  his  life 
in  the  East  End  of  London  he  had  felt  the  ugliness  of 
the  long  rows  of  monotonous  houses  as  a  perpetual 
burthen  upon  his  spirits.  With  all  his  appreciation  of 
Puritan  virtues,  he  was  keenly  awake  to  the  ugly  out- 
side of  Puritanism,  and  his  sympathy  with  religious 
instincts  did  not  extend  to  the  directly  ascetic  forms  of 
belief.  The  artistic  treasures  in  Italian  picture-galleries 
and  churches  appealed  to  him  as  well  as  the  historic 
interest  of  municipal  buildings.  He  had  not,  indeed, 
any  technical  knowledge  of  art.  He  loved  pictures  as 
the  true  man  of  letters  loves  them,  not  for  the  skill 
displayed,  but  for  the  emotions  which  they  excite.  It 
was  "  the  human  element,"  says  Mr.  Bryce,  "  that 
fascinated  him."  His  keen  sense  of  humour  was  often 
tickled  by  the  vagaries  of  the  "  aesthetical "  painter  and 
the  conventional  raptures  of  the  common  tourist ;  but 
he  could  speak  of  painting  and  sculpture  with  "  extra- 
ordinary power "  and  genuine  enthusiasm.  His  keen 
eye  for  the  physical  features  of  a  country  would  seem  to 
imply  an  equally  genuine  love  of  nature.  Mr.  Bryce, 
indeed,  thinks  that  he  was  comparatively  without  the 
"  passion  for  pure  nature  unsullied  by  the  presence  of 
man  " — for  the  objects,  that  is,  in  which  the  "  mountain 
lover"  delights.  But  then  Mr.  Bryce  is  presumably 
infected  by  the  heresies  of  the  Alpine  Club  as  becomes 
its  most  distinguished  president.  Green,  like  Freeman, 
looked  askance  at  that  monomania,  and  was  not  quali- 
fied for  its  special  modes  of  nature-worship.  That  he 
could  enjoy  the  beauties  of  Italian  scenery,  and  even 
of  mountains  at  a  proper  distance,  will  be  sufficiently 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  217 

evident  from  these  letters.  "  Though  he  was  not  a 
botanist,"  says  Mr.  Humphry  Ward,  "  I  never  heard 
any  one  speak  with  more  genuine  and  poetical  enthusiasm 
of  the  flowers  of  the  Riviera."  What  seems  to  be  clear 
is  that,  in  his  mind,  nature  was  not  "  sullied  "  by  the 
presence  of  man  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  most  interest- 
ing when  it  appeared  as  the  environment  of  some  human 
society,  the  background  which  made  some  fragment  of 
history  stand  out  more  clearly  and  intelligibly.  It  was 
scarcely  possible  for  him  to  look  at  any  scene  which  did 
not  call  up  memories  of  the  historical  events  with  which 
it  had  been  associated.  His  quick  sympathy  enabled 
him,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  of  communication,  to 
associate  himself  with  the  pleasures  and  sorrows  of  the 
living  inhabitants  ;  and  it  will  be  seen  how  thoroughly 
he  made  himself  at  home  with  the  fishers  at  Capri, 
and  was  amused  and  interested  by  their  characteristic 
manners  and  customs. 

Green's  wrestle  with  the  difficulties  of  the  Short 
History  did  not  prevent  him  from  forming  a  variety 
of  other  literary  projects  to  which  some  references  will 
be  found  in  the  following  letters.  He  discussed  many 
of  them  with  his  friend  Macmillan,  at  whose  house  he 
frequently  stayed,  talking  till  late  hours  over  these  and 
other  subjects.  One  plan  was  for  a  series  of  lives  of 
great  men,  anticipating  a  system  which  has  since  become 
popular.  The  scheme  for  a  Historical  Review  has  been 
already  mentioned  (letter  to  Freeman  of  January  23, 
1867).  It  was  frequently  discussed  by  Green  with 
Freeman,  Mr.  Bryce,  and  Professor  Ward,  but  could 
never  be  got  into  shape.  Green  was  invited  to  be 
editor,  but  ultimately  declined  for  reasons  which  will 
appear  from  his  letters.  It  was  not  started  until 
1886.  A  third  scheme  was  devised  in  co-operation 
with  Macmillan.  Green  became  editor  of  a  series  of 


218  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

historical  and  literary  "  Primers."  This  was  not  started 
until  the  publication  of  the  Short  History  had  made 
Green  famous.  A  primer  on  Rome  by  Creighton,  the 
late  Bishop  of  London,  appeared  in  1875  ;  an<^  among 
later  contributors  upon  various  topics  were  Gladstone, 
Sir  R.  Jebb,  Professor  Dowden,  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke, 
Miss  Charlotte  M.  Yonge,  Professor  Mahaffy,  and  Dr. 
Peile.  "  I  can  assure  you,"  wrote  his  friendly  publisher 
to  him  in  1877,  "that  hardly  any  enterprise  we  have 
ever  been  engaged  in  has  been  more  satisfactory  to  me 
personally,  and  not  less  to  other  members  of  the  firm, 
than  your  Primers.  Believe  me,  my  dear  Green,  that 
you  are  loved,  and  honoured,  and  trusted  among  us  all 
in  a  very  high  degree,  and  we  count  all  that  you  do 
with  and  for  us  as  among  our  most  precious  work." 
I  may  here  mention  that  Green  first  proposed  the 
formation  of  an  Oxford  Historical  Society,  and  drew 
up  a  paper  of  suggestions  for  it  in  1 88 1.  It  was  not 
started  till  1884.  For  the  present,  however,  the 
Short  History — "Little  Book"  or  "Shorts"  as  he 
calls  it,  represents  Green's  main  occupation,  though 
the  letters  will  show  how  the  extraordinary  vivacity 
and  versatility  of  his  intellect  prevented  even  that 
occupation  from  absorbing  his  whole  energies. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January  13,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  OLGA — I  appeal  to  you  as  being  not 
merely  the  wisest,  best,  and  most  thoughtful  of  human 
beings,  but  also  as  the  most  charitable,  benevolent,  and 
compassionate,  to  tell  me  without  prevarication  or 
evasion  or  subterfuge  or  cunning  craftiness  of  speech, 
but  plainly,  straightforwardly,  simply,  and  intelligibly. 

What  has  become  of  my  Little  Black  Bag  ? 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  219 

In  that  bag  —  I  confide  the  sacred  secret  to  your 
honour — in  that  bag — I  repeat  —  but  here  again  I 
appeal  to  that  nobler  and  diviner  sense  of  sympathy 
which  warms  your  buzzum — in  that  bag  was  (or  were, 
but  I  scorn  grammar  with  a  friend,  yes,  a  friend} 

one  small  and  much  worn 

pair  of 
BOOTS! 

Olga !  my  feelings  are  too  much  for  me — still,  one 
word!  That  BAG  and  THEM  boots  I  left  in  your 
ancestral  hall  when  hurried  away  by  a  daemon  in 
human  form.  Was  it  his  purpose  to  abstract  them  ? 
I  ask  in  agony,  has  he  swallowed  my  Boots?  Oh, 
Olga,  I  weep ;  but  farewell,  one  long,  last,  laster, 
longer,  longest,  lastest  Fare-better,  Fare-best. — Your 
ever  more  and  ever  morer,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January  13,  1869. 

[Percy  Smythe,  8th  Viscount  Strangford  (1826- 
1869),  the  eminent  philologist  and  orientalist,  died  on 
January  9,  1869.  He  was  a  frequent  contributor  to 
the  Saturday  Review  and  Pall  Mall  Gazette ;  but 
published  no  book  during  his  life.  His  Selected 
Writings,  edited  by  Lady  Strangford,  appeared  in 
1869.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  sure  you  have  felt  very 
deeply  poor  Lord  Strangford's  sudden  death.  How 
inadequate  what  he  has  left  behind  him  seems  to  what 
was  in  him  !  I  felt  it  in  some  ways  like  a  call,  "  the 
night  cometh  "  —I  wonder  whether  I  shall  die  as  he 
has  died,  and  leave  merely  a  name  among  a  few  ? 

Sometimes  I  think  I  have  been  playing  at  mere 
Papistry,  and  that  my  work  and  voluntary  burial  down 


220  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

here  has  been  a  mere  notion  of  making  up  for  my 
self-indulgence  and  revolt.  Who  knows?  I  can't 
read  my  own  book — sometimes  the  pages  seem  all 
black,  and  then  my  better  knowledge  rises  up  and 
says  "  No,  not  all"  and  then  I  don't  know  which  are 
black  and  which  are  white.  And  indeed  there  are 
moments  when  black  and  white  seem  one. 

I   am  going  to   run   down   on  Friday  to  Cox  but 

must  be  back  by  Saturday  even,  so  we  can't  talk  much 

—which    may    be   as  well  as  such   "  talk  of  the    lips 

tendeth   to  penury "   by  the  simple  process  of  forcing 

one  to  give  up  one's  living  and  the  like. 

Here  is  a  good  story  for  all  my  moans.  I  praught 
at  the  Savoy  on  Sunday  morn,  and  thundered  against 
the  imbecility  of  Poor  Law  administrators.  When  I 
came  out  the  Chaplain  congratulated  me  on  my  pluck, 
"  the  attentive  gentleman  three  seats  in  front  of  you 
was  Goschen,  the  President  of  the  Poor  Law  Board." 
Fancy  my  playing  Elijah  to  such  an  Ahab  ! 

I  have  been  musing  much  over  your  excursus  on  the 
Earldoms.  I  think  I  see  pretty  clearly  that  the  old 
provinces  were  rigidly  preserved  in  all  that  seeming 
chaos  ;  and  that  those  blessed  Godwiningas  were  not 
merely  throwing  England  into  hotch-pot  as  I  thought 
at  one  time.  For  instance  that  "Middle  Anglia" 
which  is  my  pet  province  just  now  seems  from  early 
days  to  have  had  a  connection  with  Northumbria,  in 
Legecestriensi  et  Snotingensi  quorum  Christianitas  ad 
archiepiscopum  Eboracemem  spectat,  says  Florence  i. 
278  ;  hence  its  broken  relations  with  Siward  and  his 
house  as  an  Earldom.  So  too  that  awful  puzzle, 
Swegen's  Earldom  with  Oxford  in  it,  looks  amazingly 
like  a  restoration  of  what  I  take  to  have  been  the 
old  Wessex  north  of  Thames  of  which  Dorchester 
was  the  seat,  and  which  must  have  occupied  pretty 
much  that  area  before  Wulf  here's  conquests. 

What  I  am  certain  of  is  that  up  to  the  Conquest 
these  provincial  divisions  and  provincial  feelings  played 
a  far  more  important  part  than  you  historians  have 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  221 

given  them  credit  for.  I  may  be  too  Mercian,  but  all 
of  you  cut  the  political  history  of  the  Mercian  Supremacy 
from  Penda's  day  to  the  sudden  rise  of  Ecgbert — some 
century  and  three-quarters.  Now  I  believe  that  it  is 
just  in  the  political  and  ecclesiastical  forms  which 
England  took  then,  that  one  can  find  out  all  such 
queer  puzzles  as  those  Mercian  Earls  you  rave  against 
more  West-Saxon-ico.  The  difference  between  South- 
Anglia — that  is  Old  Wessex  north  of  Thames,  prigged 
by  Wulfhere,  and  got  back  by  Alfred — and  Middle 
Anglia  +  Mercia  +  E.  Anglia  —  is  the  secret  of  the 
Treaty  of  Wedmore,  and  its  seemingly  arbitrary  line. 
Of  all  which  see  more  in  a  grand  excursus  on  "Mercia, 
the  Mercian  Kingdoms,  and  the  Mercian  Earls,"  which 
will  probably  never  be  written.  —  Yours  ever,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
January  29,  1869. 

[Refers  to  proof  of  Freeman's  account  of  the  coro- 
nation of  Harold  on  January  6,  and  to  the  victories  of 
Wulfhere,  King  of  Mercia,  over  the  West  Saxons.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  I  am  glad  you  are  at 
Mortemer.  Your  Epiphany  proof  reached  me,  as  you 
meant  it,  at  Cox's.  I  greatly  enjoyed  my  visit  there, 
what  a  pleasant  place  he  has,  and  what  a  delightful — 
surprise  shall  I  call  it — in  that  little  chapel.  I  suppose 
it  is  the  strength  of  the  old  Adam  in  one  which  makes 
one  connect  somehow  the  saying  of  prayers  with  the 
saying  of  creeds.  We  talked  much  of  things  not  in  the 
Norman  Conquest,  but  I  won't  talk  of  them  now  while 
I  have  the  ticket  porter's  cry  of  Battle  in  my  ears  and 
the  roll  of  William's  sea.  For  I  have  just  come  back 
from  Hastings,  and  have  done  pilgrimage  to  Anderida. 
What  a  wonderful  place  that  Pevensey  is — one  great 
circuit  of  Roman  wall  and  the  two  bastions  of  the 
Decuman  Gate  through  which  ^Ella  and  William  must 


222  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

have  passed.  I  lay  there  in  the  winter  sunshine,  and 
drome  much  of  that  long  inroll  of  wave  after  wave  of 
conquest  and  settlement  that  saw  its  beginning  and  end 
in  those  broken  walls.  Few  places  have  struck  me  so 
much  —  I  wonder  why  it  is  that  places  bring  one  this 
peculiar  pleasure  ?  Do  you  remember  our  tramps  over 
Angers  or  our  walking  about  Le  Mans,  and  telling  the 
towers  thereof  ?  Hastings  too  with  its  old  town 
squeezed  in  between  the  two  hills  and  round  the  two 
churches  has  its  interest  as  a  Cinque  Port.  I  have  been 
dipping  into  the  history  of  that  said  federation — imagine 
their  having  the  right  to  send  a  bailiff  to  Yarmouth 
during  the  herring  fishing,  who  displaced  all  the  town 
officers  and  held  pleas  and  what  not.  Do  you  know 
any  other  instance  in  England  of  this  Berne-like 
usage  ? 

I  am  forgetting  the  proof  of  the  Epiphany-Corona- 
tion, of  the  style  of  which  I  wanted  to  say  somewhat. 
Oddly  enough,  its  tone  reminded  me  of  my  sermons 
when  I  was  a  deacon,  it  wanted  measure  and  variety. 
I  was  thinking  about  style  the  other  day,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  David's  notion  of  a  procession  expressed  my 
notion  of  style,  "  the  singers  go  before,  the  minstrels 
follow  after,  in  the  midst  are  the  damsels  playing  on 
the  timbrels."  Now  you  give  us  the  singers,  capital 
"  anthems "  they  sing,  but  there  is  a  certain  want  of 
the  plain  prose  of  the  minstrels,  and  I  haven't  caught 
a  note  of  the  timbrels.  No  doubt  you  will  say  that 
I  give  the  world  quite  enough  of  the  damsels 
myself!  But  seriously  I  often  wish  in  the  middle 
of  a  grand  page  that  you  would  write  as  you  talk, 
with  all  the  variety  and  impulsiveness  and  humour 
of  your  conversation.  "  Strenuus  is  a  good  title  for 
a  king,  but  hardly  so  excellent  for  a  writer.  Perhaps  it 
is  a  slight  remnant  of  the  "  dignity  of  history  "  feeling 
that  makes  us  all  go  a  little  a-tiptoe  !  At  any  rate 
that  particular  proof  did  seem  to  me  very  rhetorical 
and  monotonous  in  style,  and  to  want  a  good  deal  of 
cutting  down. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  223 

As  to  the  facts,  my  mind  is  so  disturbed  by  the 
thought  that  before  Wulf  here  made  me  what  I  am  I  was 
a  West  Saxon  that  I  fear  to  commit  either  of  my  selves 
and  will  give  no  verdict  till  I  look  them  up  for  the 
close  of  my  little  volume.  I  think  it  likely  I  may  be 
free  in  a  month  or  so  to  set  about  it.  Macmillan  is 
willing  enough.  Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

I  saw  Venables  yesterday — he  is  our  new  Bishop's 
Examining  Chaplain. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
(1869). 

[Archbishop  Longley,  to  whom  Dr.  Stubbs  had  been 
librarian,  died  on  October  27,  1868,  and  was  succeeded 
by  Tail.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Thanks  for  your  testimonial 
—Stanley  has  written,  so  has  Stubbs  ;  while  that  dear 
old  Hardy,  the  only  other  person  I  asked,  has  written 
me  the  j oiliest  letter  in  the  world,  adding  to  the  ex- 
pression of  his  own  good  wishes  his  assurance  of  the 
good  wishes  of — Lord  Romilly  !  which  things  are  too 
wonderful  and  excellent  for  me. 

Still  there  is  little  hope.  Stubbs  has  written  in  the 
most  lucid  and  convincing  way  (!)  to  explain  this  to  me. 
It  seems  that  he  proposed  to  Longley  after  the  row  and 
reopening  of  the  Library — to  appoint  two  librarians — the 
one  to  attend  to  the  correspondence  on  literary  and 
ecclesiastical  subjects  without  necessary  attendance  at 
the  library  and  without  stipend — the  other  an  under 
Librarian  who  should  have  the  stipend  and  attend  five 
days  in  the  week  at  the  Library  to  do  the  special  Library 
work.  The  last  was  to  be  permanent  —  the  first  to 
change  as  before  with  the  change  of  Primates.  The 
Archbishop  so  far  accepted  this  that  he  appointed 
Kershaw — a  subordinate  of  Bradshaw's  at  Cambridge — 


224  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

to  the  second  office  ;  the  correspondence  remained  in 
Stubbs's  hands  but  without  any  regular  appointment. 

Now  the  stipend  is  no  matter,  and  I  have  writ  a 
second  note  to  Tait  asking  for  the  senior  Librarianship  ; 
as  I  have  no  doubt  he  will  confirm  Kershaw  in  the 
Library  itself.  What  I  really  want  is  the  position,  a  place 
which  I  can  flee  unto,  and  which  may  be  my  answer 
when  folk  ask  "  Who  is  he  ? "  But  I  don't  think  Tait 
will  see  the  fun  of  two  Libs.,  and  of  course  his  offer 
of  an  unpaid  office  to  me  would  give  me  a  claim  on  him 
which  he  may  not  care  to  incur. 

The  title  of  these  transitional  people  is  always  a 
subtlety,  like  the  raised  pies  of  the  Middle  Ages.  My 
notion  was  that  till  the  person  is  elected,  he  is  nothing 
— then  he  is  Archbishop  elect,  his  confirmation  makes 
him  Archbishop,  his  consecration  only  giving  him  the 
spiritual  functions.  But  this  may  be  Erastian,  and  we 
Erastians  should  be  modest  just  now  when  we  have  put 
your  candles  out. 

I  longed  much  to  have  been  with  you  at  Andreds- 
ceaster — your  letter  set  me  dreaming  and  I  drome  that 
you  and  JElla  and  Cissa  were  besieging  Jesus  College, 
and  that  I  showed  the  Principal  in  the  Chronicle  the 
precedent  for  not  leaving  a  Welshman  alive.  But  lo  ! 
I  awoke  ;  and  like  all  pleasant  things  in  this  world, 
it  was  a  Dream. 

How  odd  that  our  two  Irreparable  Pasts  should  be 
turning  up  together  in  the  matrimonial  way.  I,  too, 
have  had  a  slight  attack  of  memory,  but  it  has  been 
mitigated  by  a  photograph,  which  showed  that  the  chin 
of  the  I.  P.  had  become  double  in  the  hours  of  desertion. 
Neither  my  morals  nor  my  constitution  are  equal  to  a 
double  chin. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  G. 


[Fragment,  probably  suggested  by  the  visit  to  Battle.] 

i.  William's  policy  was  to  bring  H.  to  an  engage- 
ment— and  that  on  the  open  coast  where  his  cavalry 
could  act.  This  was  why  he  stayed  at  Hastings.  Had 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY''  225 

he  marched  on  London  (i)  he  might  have  been 
attacked  in  the  difficult  Weald,  or  (2)  have  reached 
London  to  find  it  and  the  line  of  Thames  barred 
against  him,  and  Harold  even  in  weak  force  able  to  hold 
it  while  receiving  reinforcements.  To  draw  H.  to  him 
Wm.  waited,  sent  irritating  messages,  ravaged.  Had 
he  seized  Battle,  it  could  only  have  forced  Harold  to 
decline  fighting.  W.'s  object  was  to  get  him  to 
fight. 

2.  Harold's    best    strategy   to    play    Fabius.       We 
don't  know  why  he  sought  an  engagement  so  early — it 
seems  as  if  he  purposed  to  avoid  being  joined  by  the 
Mercian   Earls.      He  was  certainly  irritated   by  W.'s 
messages  and  ravage.     But  having  resolved  to  bring  W. 
to  battle  his  policy  was  masterly.     He  took  post  near 
enough  to  force  W.  to  concentrate  his  force,  that  is  to 
cease  foraging.     W.  had  to  starve  or  fight,  and  to  fight 
he  must  attack  H.  on  H.'s  own  ground.     Hence  he 
foils  W.'s  plan  while  seeming  to  fall  in  with  it.     He 
does  accept  the  battle  challenge,  but  he  draws  W.  out 
of  the  plain  into  the  broken  Weald. 

3.  The  position — threefold.      (i)  On  west  highest 
ground,  steep  in  front  and  rear.     A  beck  beginning  in 
two  springs  by  the  Abbey  Gate  on  the  north  deepens 
and   curves  round  this  northern  end,  defending  it  on 
every  side  but  that  of  the  general  plateau.     (2)  Further 
along  plateau  it  dips  gently,  the  slope  becomes  easy  of 
attack  ;  but  here  the  face  of  the  hill  is  thrown  forward 
in  Malmesbury's  "  tumulus,"  the  key  of  the  position. 
(3)  Still  farther  east  the  level  rises  again  gently  to  the 
Abbey.     Here  stood  Harold's  standard.     The  slope  in 
front  of  William  and  beneath  the  standard  rises  gently 
from  the  bottom  almost  to  the  brow  of  the  plateau  ; 
but  the  brow  itself  is  abrupt  and  defensible.     (4)  On 
the  extreme  east  the  plateau  forks  and  dips  gently  into 
the  general   level  of  the   rolling   country.      Here  too 
the  bottom  between  the  two  armies  ends  in  a  rise  of 
ground  which  links  the  two  positions  together. 

This  (4th)  eastern  end  is  easiest  of  attack  ;  it  might 

Q 


226  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

be  turned.  But  to  do  this  William,  whose  base  of 
communications  was  at  Hastings  and  must  be  firmly 
held,  must  have  weakened  his  force  in  front  of  Harold. 
This  he  could  not  do  ;  hence  the  fights  on  this  side 
had  little  effect  on  the  battle.  (2)  On  the  opposite 
flank  the  Bretons  seem  to  have  pushed  round  by  the 
ravine,  and  to  have  got  smashed  there  by  Harold's 
right  wing.  Their  defeat  .  .  . 


To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
February  2,  1869. 

[Dr.  W.  A.  Greenhill  (1814-1894),  a  well-known 
physician  and  antiquary,  and  one  of  Newman's  friends 
at  Oxford,  was  living  at  Hastings.] 

MY  DEAR  DAX —  .  .  .  Freeman's  third  volume  is 
well  on  its  way  to  the  printer's.  I  saw  one  proof 
which  was  far  too  rhetorical  and  diffuse  ;  but  E.  A.  F. 
tvith  all  his  greatness  profits  very  little  by  criticism. 
I  commended  to  him  as  the  type  of  good  style  David's 
notion  of  a  procession — "  The  singers  go  before,  the 
minstrels  follow  after,  in  the  midst  are  the  damsels 
playing  on  the  timbrels" — and  told  him  he  gave  us 
plenty  of  "  anthems "  from  the  singers,  but  little  of 
plain  prose  from  the  "  minstrels,"  while  I  couldn't  catch  a 
note  of  the  "  timbrels."  He  and  I  did  Battle  together  : 
we  caught  the  Duke,  but  took  him  for  a  gardener.  The 
"joggrafy"  of  the  battle  itself  came  out  perfectly  on 
the  spot.  Since  then  I  have  run  down  for  a  week  to 
Dr.  Greenhill  at  Hastings,  and  peeped  at  Pevensey 
with  its  great  Anderida-circuit  all  complete.  Few  ruins 
have  impressed  me  more.  It  was  odd  to  stand  in  that 
Decuman  Gateway,  on  the  very  ground  which  JElla 
and  William  must  both  have  trodden,  and  to  feel  that 
that  one  spot  had  seen  the  beginning  and  end  of  the 
great  series  of  conquests.  In  Greenhill's  drawers  too 
I  found  a  lot  of  Stanley's  letters  from  Rugby,  with 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'1  227 

boyish  vignettes  of  Arnold  !     I  have  written  to  Grove 
and  hope  to  get  them  into  Macmillan. 

I  think  it  likely  that  Easter  may  see  me  at  King's 
College  as  Chaplain  and  Censor  —  not  a  very  valuable 
post  (^120,  grub  and  rooms),  but  relieving  me  of  the 
worry  and  work  here,  and  giving  me  plenty  of  leisure 
for  serious  work.  Moreover  it  will  relieve  me  from 
a  position  which  thought  renders  daily  more  imprac- 
ticable. It  is  possible  too  that  Tait  may  make  me 
Senior  Librarian  at  Lambeth ;  if  so,  my  status  is 
assured,  and  that  terrible  question,  "  Who  is  he  ? " 
receives  an  archiepiscopal  reply.  Anyhow,  I  have  made 
up  my  mind  to  quit  these  eastern  climes,  and  for  a 
while  to  withdraw  quietly  from  any  conspicuous  clerical 
position.  King's  College  will  be  pleasant  enough,  if 
only  because  it  is  so  very  accessible  to  a  certain  friend 
who  will  find  it  at  no  great  distance  from  the  Geolog. 
Soc.  rooms ! 

Good-bye,  dear  Dax  ;  give  my  kindest  remembrances 
to  your  wife.  I  hope  she  is  quite  reconciled  to  the 
Cotton  City. — And  believe  me,  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
(end  of  February  '69). 

[The  review  of  Longman's  Edward  III.  appeared 
on  February  20  and  27,  1869.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — You  are  right  about  the 
librarianship.  I  am  Tait's  man,  and  did  homage  for 
my  fee  before  the  portraits  of  Warham  yesterday. 
Thanks  for  kind  words  of  yours  which  no  doubt 
helped  much  this  consummation.  I  leave  St.  Philip's 
at  Easter,  and  woo  poverty  and  freedom,  a  sort  of 
combination  of  St.  Francis  and  John  of  Leyden.  As 
to  my  Jacquerie,  I  thought  I  had  preached  unto  you 
beside  the  field  of  Senlac  on  my  hatred  of  that  Edward- 


228  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

time.  I  have  pitched  into  it  again  this  week  a  propos 
of  Longman's  Edward  III.  It  has  the  singular  merit 
of  combining  into  one  everything  that  I  hate.  Of 

HAROLD 

your    ^-^~^    ^"^---^    trinity,  Simon  is  the  only 

EDWARD  SIMON 

one  to  my  liking,  and  that  partly  because  those  cussed 
barons  hacked  him  so  at  Evesham  in  your  Edward's 
service.  But  he  did  love  the  "  minor  populus,"  the 
"  Littlegregus  "  [?]  as  you  will  translate  it,  and  didn't  like 
Edward  back  up  the  Aldermen.  I  am  like  that  De 
Rochefort  who  owned  himself  a  Napoleonist,  but  begged 
leave  to  choose  his  Napoleon  and  chose  the  Second 
"  because  he  levied  no  taxes  and  waged  no  wars."  Of 
the  three  Edwards,  the  second  is  the  man  for  my 
money. 

I  send  you  Marie  de  France^  as  I  don't  quite  know 
which  passage  you  want. 

Wont  it  be  jolly  to  have  no  sermons  to  preach  on 
Sundays  ! — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

St.  PHILIP'S  STEPNEY, 
end  of  February  1 869. 

[This  refers  to  an  attack  upon  Freeman  in  the 
Athenaeum.  Hepworth  Dixon  resigned  the  editorship 
in  August  1869.  The  Librarianship  was  unpaid.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Mary  tarried  in  the  kitchen 
owing  to  my  servant's  negligence,  to  whom  I  had 
committed  her  for  postage.  She  goes  to-day.  The 
Censorship  was  the  King's  College  appointment,  which 
vanished  before  my  "  notorious  broad-churchism."  I 
get  no  pay  nor  rooms  nor  mutton-chops,  but  I  get  the 
Librarianship  which  gives  me  a  "  steak  "  in  the  Church 
still.  Stubbs  rejoices,  but  from  his  letter  I  discover 
for  the  first  time  that  he  half-expected  the  offer  of  the 
post  to  himself.  The  Archbishop  I  am  sure  didn't 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  229 

know  he  had  the  slightest  notion  of  this  or  he  would 
have  given  it  to  him  at  once.  And  as  for  me,  am  I  a 
dog  that  I  should  do  despite  to  Stubbs  ?  However,  he 
is  very  pleased  at  his  successor ;  and  to  me,  of  course, 
half  the  value  of  the  post  lies  in  its  being  a  following 
of  Stubbs. 

For  in  spite  of  your  homilies,  my  dear  Freeman,  I 
am  loyal  to  my  masters,  you  being  one.  I  knew 
nothing  till  last  night  about  the  vile  conduct  of  Hep- 
worth  Dixon,  and  have  not  yet  seen  the  preceding 
attack  of  Surtees.  Of  course  I  am  entirely  in  your 
hands — if  you  would  wish  me  to  own  the  papers  I  will 
do  so  at  any  risks.  But  in  spite  of  Dixon's  brutal  note 
I  think  your  reply  conclusive  enough.  As  you  tell  me 
now  and  then  I  do  not  "  know  how  to  review,"  but  I 
pray  all  the  Gods  to  let  me  try  my  hand  at  Hepworth's 
next  volume.  If  I  slay  him  not,  let  me  die  the  death 
of  a  cow.  As  to  my  own  "attack"  it  was  (i)  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  prodigious  difficulties  you 
have  had  to  contend  with,  and  to  contend  with  un- 
aided and  alone ;  (2)  my  opinion  that  without  the 
special  preliminary  work  such  as  I  was  advocating 
"  even  industry  like  Mr.  Freeman's "  could  not  cover 
the  whole  field  through  which  he  passes  ;  (3)  that  not 
Mr.  Freeman  but  "  one  and  another  of  our  historians  " 
is  driven  by  want  of  these  aids  to  either  leave  out  or 
not  attach  sufficient  importance  to  certain  influences 
which  /  consider  important.  Which  of  these  three 
statements  do  you  deny? — which  is  an  "attack"? 
Don't  you  see  that  if  you  will  write  a  great  book  and 
become  even  as  Gibbon  or  Palgrave  that  you  must 
expect  to  pay  the  penalty  of  greatness  and  to  be  quoted 
as  a  type,  as  an  illustration  of  a  school  of  history,  or  of 
a  certain  mode  of  conducting  historical  research  ?  As 
to  the  "  old  almanac,"  surely  you  remember  the  phraze 
— a  famous  one  of  Lord  Plunkett's — not  mine. 

Still  had  I  known  of  that  Athenaeum  row  I  would 
have  put  some  single  line  in  which  would  have  settled 
the  question  of  my  opinion  of  your  book.  As  it  was 


230  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  avoided  doing  so,  and  even  struck  out  in  the  proof 
the  epithet  "  noble  "  before  the  words  "  account  of  the 
Conquest,"  because  I  imagined  people  would  say  "  there 
is  the  S.  R.  buttering  Freeman."  Moreover,  as  to 
"moral  and  spiritual,"  don't  be  hard  on  a  parson  for 
using  words  of  his  craft.  You  see  I  have  to  tell  people 
twice  every  seven  days  that  the  outer  circumstances  of 
life  are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  its  "  moral  and 
spiritual "  tone  and  character  ;  and  I  haven't  yet  found 
out  why  this,  if  true  to-day,  wasn't  true  under  Harold 
or  William.  Nor  do  I  quite  understand  why  "  talk  " 
about  "  moral  and  spiritual  "  need  be  "  vague  "  in  their 
case,  unless  it  is  vague  in  ours.  And  if  it  be  vague  in 
ours,  then  why  do  I  preach  every  Sunday  ?  And  why  does 
a  great  historian  go  to  Bee  to  look  for  the  "  spiritual," 
and  page  after  page  a  propos  of  poor  Napoleon  and 
Nebuchadnezzar  pitch  into  us  the  "  moral "  ? 

Now  I  sulk  not,  neither  do  I  whine,  neither  do  I 
write  a  Sophistical  (but  rather  a  Socratic)  defence.  I 
believe  that  I  served  as  whipping-boy  for  Hepworth 
Dixon,  and  that  the  stripes  of  them  that  rebuked  thee 
have  fallen  upon  me.  So  I  shall  in  due  time  "  pass  it 
on  "  to  the  said  Hepworth's  account.  By-the-bye  the 
blessed  Stubbs  mourneth  and  languisheth  because  of 
my  treatment  of  Longshanks.  I  sing  aloud  my  pet 
verse  of  the  Magnificat  :  "  He  hath  put  down  the 
mighty  from  their  seat,  and  hath  exalted  the  humble 
and  meek,"  and  shake  hands  with  the  ghosts  of  the 
second  Edward  and  the  second  Richard.  I  can  forgive 
a  King  when  he  is  deposed,  and  admire  a  Priest  when 
he  lias  resigned  his  living,  as  I  did  two  days  ago. — 
Ever  yours  faithfully,  dear  Master,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  B.  Dawkins 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY, 
March  3,  1869. 

MY  DEAR  OLD  DAX  —  How  immensely  jolly  of 
you  to  come  and  have  a  final  chat  before  you  go  to 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  231 

Manchester  and  I  leave  St.  Philip's.  For  I  do  leave  at 
Easter.  The  Archbishop  has  appointed  me  Stubbs's 
successor  at  the  Lambeth  Library,  and  so  I  avail  myself 
of  it  to  steal  away.  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it  and  my 
reasons  when  you  come.  Anyhow,  I  have  now  got  a 
settled  literary  status,  and  that  without  ostensibly  quit- 
ting the  line  Ecclesiastical,  do  you  see?  I  can't  tell 
you  how  glad  I  am,  and  if  anything  could  have  pleased 
me  more  than  the  offer  of  the  post  it  would  have  been 
Tait's  extreme  kindness  in  the  way  he  made  it.  We 
dine  at  5.30  on  Monday,  and  expect  you.  My  sister's 
kind  regards. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ST.  PHILIP'S,  STEPNEY. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Dawkins  gave  me  the  most 
amusing  account  of  your  wrestlings  with  an  antiquarian 
map-maker  whom  you  had  reduced  to  imbecility  and 
tears.  I  proposed  to  him  a  new  paragraph  for  his 
paper  on  the  "  Retreat  of  the  Lion  from  Europe," 
thus,  "  A  solitary  specimen  of  this  noble  but  ferocious 
animal  is  still  to  be  found  at  Somerleaze.  He  has 
lately  devoured  a  geographer  "  ;  but  he  was  ungrateful, 
and  wouldn't  put  it  in. 

I  am  going  down  to  have  a  bit  of  dinner  with 
Macmillan  to  talk  over  many  things.  He  has  some 
"  Past  and  Present "  maps — as  I  call  them — on  hand  : 
whose  end  I  could  not  at  first  make  out,  but  which 
should  come  in  useful.  The  idea  is  to  have,  as  it 
were,  both  the  modern  map  and  Spruner  under  your 
eye  at  once,  modern  map  being  the  base  or  ground 
work,  and  Spruner  laid  upon  it.  Moreover,  I  think  of 
writing  a  book  on  Lambeth  Memorials  or  some 
such,  which  Macmillan  is  keen  upon,  and  which  will  pay, 
pleasing  likewise  the  Archbishop.  It  would  take  a  very 
little  time,  and  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  new  stuff 
to  work  in.  Likewise  there  may  be  some  pretty 


232  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

pictures,  such  as  Queen  Bess  bidding  farewell  to  Mrs. 
Tait,  with  "  Madam,  I  may  not,  and  Mistress,  I  will 
not,"  and  a  sketch  of  Archbishop  Cornwallis's  Ball 
which  never  came  off ;  which  one  might  label  "  the 
Failure  of  the  First  Lambeth  Conference." 

Oh,  Freeman,  my  good  fellow,  how  I  wish  you 
were  here.  I  am  in  such  tearing  spirits  at  the  prospect 
of  Freedom.  William  Tell,  ora  pro  nobis  —  Oh, 
Leonidas,  Garibaldi,  all  illustrious  Bards  of  Freedom, 
hoorah-te  pro  nobis  ! — Good-bye,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  W.  B.  Dawkins 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
April 24.,  1869. 

[Two  papers  on  Gildas  appeared  in  the  Saturday 
Review,  on  April  24  and  May  8,  1869.  The  "Rolls- 
book  "  was  upon  Dunstan.  Green  ultimately  handed 
over  his  materials  to  Stubbs,  who  used  them  for  his 
Memorials  of  St.  Dunstan.'] 

MY  DEAR  DAX  —  ...  I  hardly  know  as  yet 
whether  I  am  on  my  head  or  my  heels.  It  is  so  odd 
to  be  without  a  parish,  without  a  parsonage,  without  a 
hundred  bothers,  interruptions,  quarrels,  questions  to 
decide,  engagements  to  recollect,  lectures  to  compose, 
visits  to  make,  sermons  to  plan,  etc.  etc.  Then  too 
the  quiet  of  the  Lambeth  Library  is  like  still  waters 
after  the  noise  of  the  East.  I  enjoy  even  the  cleaner 
streets,  and  above  all  my  morning's  trot  through  the 
Parks.  It  is  such  a  change  too  to  get  a  chat  when 
one  likes,  to  be  able  to  get  a  peep  at  good  pictures, 
and  to  have  one's  mind  free  for  the  things  one  cares 
about. 

Well  I  am  writing  like  a  Sybarite,  and  perhaps 
after  eight  years  in  the  East  End  Sybaris  has  its 
charms,  but  I  am  getting  into  work  as  well.  I  began 
Sat.  Rev.  again  this  week  with  an  elaborate  paper  on 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  233 

Gildas,  which  I  should  like  you  to  look  at  if  that 
naughty  periodical  comes  your  way.  Then  too  I  have 
begun  my  Rolls  book,  and  done  my  papers  for  the 
Institute — in  fact,  I  am  getting  into  the  literary  rut 
pretty  well.  Good-bye,  old  boy.  Remember  me  most 
kindly  to  your  wife,  and  believe  me. — Very  faithfully 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

LAMBETH  PALACE,  S.E., 
[August  1869]. 

[The  paper  on  St.  Edmundsbury  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Review,  for  July  31,  1869.] 

DEAR  E.  A.  F. —  ...  I  am  going  on  Monday 
with  the  Brookes  to  Switzerland  for  three  weeks,  then 
for  three  weeks  to  Venice,  then  I  hope  for  a  fortnight 
to  Verona,  Milan,  Genoa,  home.  I  was  doubtful  about 
going  as  I  hadn't  a  penny  ;  but  I  have  writ  much,  and 
made  ^45  this  last  fortnight  and  I  shall  add  ^10  to 
it  this  week  so  I  can  start  in  peace.  .  .  . 

I  am  so  glad  you  liked  the  Bury  paper  in  S.  R. 
I  hadn't  written  anything  for  so  long  that  I  doubted 
much  about  it.  But  what  a  new  field  these  burgher 
matters  open  up.  I  am  going  to  study  them  in  Italy  a 
bit.  I  have  very  queer  theories  about  the  influence  of 
the  Italian  communities  on  English  town  matters. 
The  dates  fit  in  so  oddly.  Without  being  fanciful, 
Italian  influences  seem  to  me  to  have  played  a  far 
greater  part  in  English  history  than  we  have  yet 
made  out. 

I  writ  to  Cox,  and  Cox  writ  in  pleasantest  fashion 
to  me.  Hull  is  utterly  out  of  the  question  ;  if  you 
had  had  as  much  preaching  as  I  have,  you  would 
detest  the  merely  metamorphic  form  of  it  which  is 
called  lecturing.  If  folk  want  to  learn  let  them 
read  and  work — as  for  gaslights  and  small  jokes  and 
knitting  needles  in  a  Lecture-room,  God  forbid  ! 


234  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Look  in  the  Monasticon  for  Abbot  Baldwin  —  I 
think  what  you  want  is  in  one  of  the  Appendices. 

I  know  nothing  about  Luzern  and  those  places  or 
else  I  should  be  able  to  get  much  municipal  stuff  out 
of  them.  Is  there  a  book  in  English  or  French  that  I 
could  get  ?  Write  and  tell  me  by  return  so  that  I 
may  get  it  before  I  go.  Italian  things  I  know  about, 
and  shall  write  to  S.  R.  upon. — Ever  yours,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 

ST.  JAMES'S  ST., 
early  November  1869. 

[Smith  is  (Sir)  William  Smith  (1813-1895)  then 
editor  of  the  Quarterly  Review.~\ 

MY  DEAR  E.  A.  F. — I  came  back  last  week,  very 
tired,  but  with  a  new  sense  of  the  world's  beauty, 
and — what  will  you  say  to  me — a  resolve  to  go  to 
Italy  every  year  till  I  die.  The  land  has  cast  its 
spell  on  me  as  it  did  on  Theodoric  and  the  Ottos. 
But  first  to  business.  Bryce  is  eating  his  dinner  down- 
stairs, so  I  don't  speak  ex-cathedra,  but  I  saw  Mac- 
millan  on  my  return  and  found  him  cooled  about  the 
Historic  Review.  The  new  organization  of  the  North 
British,  with  its  wonderfully  good  summary  of  the 
historical  literature  of  the  quarter,  and  the  appearance 
of  the  Academy,  certainly  cut  into  our  original  plan. 
Moreover,  thinking  quietly  over  it  in  Switzerland,  I 
doubted  whether  the  sum  Macmillan  offers  would 
really  do — it  would  only  give  a  modicum  for  papers, 
and  nothing  for  editing.  And  again  Bryce  and  Ward 
must  come  to  much  clearer  terms  as  to  the  work  they 
will  undertake  or  I  must  hold  back.  It  is  far  too 
big  a  job  to  start  without  clearly  seeing  one's  way. 
So  you  will  see  one  need  not  think  just  yet  of  papers. 
(2)  I  write  to  Smith  to-day  to  tell  him  I  have  come 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  235 

back  too  late  to  give  him  the  review  for  Christmas, 
I  will  send  it  in  for  March.  To  make  up,  I  have  got 
to  do  your  little  book  for  S.  R.,  and  both  your  im- 
mortal works  for  Pall  Mall:  so  I  shall  be  awfully 
tired  of  you  without  a  quarterly  article.  As  to  "  little 
book  "  an  Oxford  fellow  writes  in  admiration  :  "  It  is 
a  charming  child's  book,  for  children  of  twenty-four." 
Is  this  as  true  as  it  is  witty  ? 

I  have  been  worriting  myself  these  last  days  with 
those  Welsh  chaps  and  our  early  history,  but  I  am 
getting  more  and  more  to  think  that  one  is  lured  into 
cloud-land  by  them.  Of  course  Gildas  is  all  right,  and 
there  are  nuggets  in  Nennius,  but  when  one  tries  to  work 
in  the  Welsh  traditions  or  songs,  somehow  or  other 
my  "historical  tact"  begins  to  cry  "Cave."  I  doubt 
even  about  Guest's  attempts  that  way  —  his  guesses 
about  Arthur,  his  use  of  Llywarch  Hen  in  "  the  Severn 
Valley "  and  the  like.  It  is  a  great  disappointment, 
for  I  have  worked  a  good  deal  at  them,  especially  at 
those  lives  of  Dubricius  and  David,  Kentigern,  and  so 
on,  and  I  still  see  there  is  something  to  be  made  of 
them  ;  but  it  wants  the  lifetime  of  a  man  like  Reeves 
before  they  can  be  really  smelted  down.  I  still  cling 
to  a  few  things — such  as  the  religious  dissensions  of 
Britain, — the  war  between  Gael  and  Cymry  in  Middle 
Wales, — and  -perhaps  the  Roman  and  anti- Roman 
parties  of  which  Guest  speaks.  But  I  am  less  sure  of 
these  last  than  I  used  to  be.  And  I  am  less  sure  of 
my  Chronicle  before  Ethelwulf's  time.  You  know 
Stubbs  has  pronounced  it  an  English  translation  of  a 
Latin  Compilation  principally  founded  on  Bede,  and 
the  Northern  Chron.  which  followed  him.  So  far  I 
think  I  go  with  him,  but  it  seems  to  me  there  were 
original  annals  of  Wessex  which  were  used  as  basis  of 
the  compilation  ;  and  I  have  a  sort  of  notion  that 
H.  Huntingdon  had  those  annals  in  their  original 
state  with  the  "  poetry "  embedded  in  them  before 
him,  and  simply  translated  them  if  they  were  English. 
Just  look  at  him  and  note  his  purely  "  Wessex  trans- 


236  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

actions,"  just  as  might  be  before  Swithun  or  Alfred  put 
in  the  Baeda  bits  and  the  Northern  events.  But  then 
there's  the  sort  of  preface  about  "  Kent  and  Sussex 
conquests,"  over  which  I  muse,  not  exactly  seeing  my 
way.  Your  giving  up  "Port"  (I  don't  mean  in  a 
total-abstinence  way)  was  a  great  shock  to  my  faith. 
If  "  Port "  is  legend,  why  am  I  to  look  on  Cerdic  as 
historical  ?  So  long  as  I  have  Gildas  well ;  but  after 
Aylesford  and  before  Bede,  I  don't  see  quite  as  clearly 
as  I  did.  And  Guest  is  not  quite  as  conclusive  as  he 
used  to  seem. 

But  these  be  thoughts  of  darkness  which  shall  not 
affect  the  "  tone  of  the  S.  R."  Let  anybody  breathe 
a  doubt  about  Horsa,  that's  all  !  And  meanwhile,  it 
was  so  jolly  to  see  Venice  and  stand  before  the  Ducal 
Chapel  and  see  the  pretty  marbles  that  "  our  Lord 
and  Emperor  Constantine  "  sent  to  S.  Mark.  It  was  so 
odd  to  cross  the  Empire,  to  start  from  and  arrive  at 
the  two  places  where  a  western  Caesar  didn't  come, 
unless  like  Barbarossa  he  came  to  be  scolded.  I  saw  in 
the  Archives  the  original  treaty  between  the  Dukedom 
and  Charles  the  Fat,  but  they  talk  like  two  strangers. 
Romanis  ipsis  Romaniores  —  "  true  Roumans  "  these 
Venetians  used  to  call  themselves.  It  seems  to  me 
the  one  bit  of  the  older  Empire  which  remained 
politically,  socially,  religiously  unchanged.  Rawdon 
Browne  was  very  civil.  He  knows  lots,  but  about 
later  times  than  what  most  interested  me.  Fancy 
taking  up  a  great  volume  of  the  Agenda  of  the  Council 
of  Italia  for  1301,  and  finding  the  whole  series  going 
calmly  on  to  the  French  Revolution  !  At  Verona  I 
made  a  charming  hit — I  guessed  the  real  Roman  town, 
Catullus'  and  Theodoric's  Verona,  must  be  on  the 
other  side  the  Adige  to  where  town  and  Duomo  are 
now  ;  and  there  in  a  neglected  Church  I  found  the 
real  old  Episcopal  Basilica  with  sixth  century  tombs  in 
its  crypt  and  in  its  apse  "high  over  the  people", 
the  real  bishop's  chair  of  marble — disused  ever  since 
Emperor  Otto  moved  the  Duomo  over  Adige  to  its 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  237 

present   post.      No   bishop    had   sate   in  it   since  nine 
hundred  and  odd ! 

As  for  Switzerland,  I  got  rid  with  Relliet's  help  of 
all  that  mythical  stuff,  and  just  lay  in  the  pass  beneath 
the  cliffs  of  Unterwalden  looking  out  on  Schwytz  and 
Uri  and  the  bay  of  the  Three  Cantons.  Never  such  a 
day  again  ! — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET, 

(1869). 

[Freeman's  Old  English  History  for  Children  ap- 
peared in  1869.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  owe  you  some  hours  of 
enjoyment,  for  I  have  just  been  reading  through  the 
sheets  of  your  Child's-Book  up  to  the  coming  of  the 
Danes.  I  can't  tell  you  how  much  I  admire  it ;  it  is 
certain  to  be  popular,  and  to  do  an  immense  deal  of 
good.  I  hardly  know  which  I  like  best — its  chat  and 
ease  or  the  Biblical  quaintness  of  the  stories  you  tell. 
The  poorest  chapter  I  have  got  to  as  yet  is  that  on  the 
English  Conquest.  I  still  demur  (of  course)  to  the 
Bretwaldas  ;  and  equally  of  course  to  your  summing 
up  the  Anglian  centuries  of  Supremacy  into  a  period  of 
West-Saxon  rise.  But  these  be  nought  compared  with 
the  boldness  of  your  introduction  of  your  children  into 
the  whole  criticism  of  authorities,  etc.  This  constitutes 
the  real  originality  and  value  of  the  book.  I  should 
never  have  dreamt  of  doing  it ;  but  done  as  it  is  it  is 
a  simple  triumph.  We  can  never  go  back  in  children's 
books  to  the  old  Ipse  dixi. 

I  spent  Sunday  with  Macmillan  and  G.  W.  Clark, 
who  told  one  pretty  story  of  Neate  and  Dizzy.  Long 
after  Free  Trade  had  come  in  Neate  remained  un- 
convinced, and  at  last  wrote  a  pamphlet  advocating  a 
restoration  of  Protection,  and  got  a  friend  to  submit  it 


238  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

to  Disraeli.  "Tell  him,"  replied  D.,  "that  Protection 
is  dead."  "  But  Mr.  Neate,"  replied  the  friend,  "  be- 
lieves in  its  Resurrection."  "  Then  tell  him,"  Dizzy 
whispered,  "  tell  him  Protection  is  not  only  dead  but 
damned." 

Bryce  is  keeping  our  review-programme  in  the  vain 
hope  of  finding  another  word  for  "  scientific,"  which  he 
hateth  ;  also  that  he  may  explain  more  at  large  that 
we  are  not  going  to  employ  the  French  correspondent 
of  the  Daily  Telegraph  to  do  our  summaries  of  foreign 
matters.  Let  us  trust  he  may  make  it  clear.  What 
a  bright,  jolly  fellow  he  is  when  one  comes  to 
know  him  ! 

Good-bye.  In  all  Curtiusy  and  Conscience. — Yours 
very  truly,  J.  R.  G. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

(Deer.  0/1869.) 

[The  "Venice  and  Torcello "  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Review  on  December  n,  1869.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  afraid  I  must  again  dis- 
appoint you  (and  still  more  myself)  in  the  matter  of 
my  Christmas  visit.  I  have  just  been  stethoscoped  by 
Dr.  Andrew  Clark,  and  he  has  discovered  that  there  is 
some  serious  damage  to  my  right  lung  which  will 
require  a  good  deal  of  trouble  to  fight  down,  if  it  is 
to  be  fought  down  at  all.  At  any  rate  he  wishes  me  to 
remain  quietly  under  his  charge  for  the  next  month,  till 
he  can  judge  what  system  of  treatment  to  adopt. 

Please  keep  this  to  yourself.  I  don't  want  to  set  up 
for  an  invalid  ;  though  I  am  afraid  that  if  all  went  for 
the  best  I  must  be  content  to  live  that  sort  of  life  for 
a  long  time.  I  am  not  so  scared  as  some  people  might 
be  ;  my  only  regret  is  that  I  have  not  done  more  in 
my  life,  if  it  is  to  be  a  short  one.  But  at  present  there 
is  very  good  hope,  I  believe,  that  the  mischief  can  be 
really  met. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  239 

It  is  a  sad  disappointment  not  to  see  you  and  chat 
with  you.  But  you  will  manage — as  you  always  do 
manage — to  write  to  me  now  and  then  ;  your  letters 
are  always  so  great  a  pleasure  to  me.  After  all  I 
yielded  to  the  Academicians  and  reviewed  Charley 
Pearson,  but  in  such  wise  that  they  have  not  dared  to 
put  it  in.  And  yet  I  was  very  civil.  I  hope  you  liked 
my  "Venice  and  Torcello"  last  Saturday.  I  forgot  to 
tell  you  how  I  enjoyed  your  'c  Kenfig  "  ;  those  "  peasant 
boroughs  "  are  an  odd  English  feature  of  municipal  life 
of  which  I  know  nothing.  Is  there  any  instance  of  a 
purely  "Bishop's  borough"  here  save  Wells? 

Good-bye.  Write  and  tell  me  all  your  plans  for 
Christmas  diversions.  Don't  you  dance  yourself  at 
the  Christmas  ball  ?  Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

I  MANCHESTER  SQUARE,  W., 
(end  of  1 869). 

[This  is  the  first  mention  of  the  Short  HistoryJ] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Frank  Palgrave  has  just  been 
down  at  Hatfield,  Lord  Salisbury's  place,  and  has 
brought  back  some  charming  "  Notes  on  Froude." 
In  the  library  are  ten  presses  full  of  the  Burghley 
papers,  whereof  two  are  shown  to  the  "casual  visitor" 
by  the  housekeeper.  Anthony  looked  a  little  into  the 
two  but  never  discovered  the  existence  of  the  other 
eight !  Lady  S.  says  he  is  "  the  most  indolent  man  " 
she  ever  knew.  Shall  we  call  him  "  Indolence  in  a 
dozen  volumes"  ? 

Note  in  vol.  xii.  a  passage  about  Sixtus  V.  "  curs- 
ing and  swearing "  at  his  servants  ;  and  then  look  at 
the  Spanish  beneath  with  its  simple  malas  -palabras. 
Does  F.  never  scold  a  servant  without  "  cursing  and 
swearing  "  ? 

My  general  health  is  far  better  ;  thanks  above  all 


240  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

to  the  incessant  care  and  kindness  of  the  Brookes,  who 
have  insisted  on  my  stopping  here  with  them — and  my 
lung  is  "  certainly  no  worse,  probably  a  shade  better," 
says  Clark.  I  daresay  that  with  patience  and  care  I 
shall  be  patched  up  ;  but  "  patience  and  care  "  ! !  Life 
has  never  been  very  amusing,  and  now  it  will  be  greyer 
and  duller  than  ever. 

I  am  going  to  drop  S.  R.  writing,  as  "  too  exciting  " 
and  so  on,  and  only  drop  in  a  paper  now  and  then 
when  the  spirit  moves.  So  to  live,  and  also  partly  that 
I  may  set  down  a  few  notions  which  I  have  conceived 
concerning  history,  I  have  offered  Macmillan  to  write 
a  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  600  pp.  octavo, 
which  might  serve  as  an  introduction  to  better  things 
if  I  lived,  and  might  stand  for  some  work  done  if  I 
didn't.  He  has  taken  it,  giving  me  ^350  down  and 
j£ioo  if  2000  copies  sell  in  six  months  after  publi- 
cation. 

He  seems  delighted  with  the  sale  of  your  little  book 
—  1 200  gone  already.  You  have  got  fairly  into  port 
at  last,  my  dear  E.  A.  F.,  after  all  your  long  brave 
battle  with  adverse  seas.  Why  not  republish  the  best 
book  you  ever  did  in  some  ways — your  History  of  the 
Saracens — now  when  the  tide  is  in  ? 

Write  to  me  soon — letters  are  so  precious  now.  All 
good  wishes  for  the  coming  year. — Ever  yours,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  Miss  L.  von  Glehn  {Mrs.  Creighton) 

Thanks,  dear  Louise,  for  the  paper  of  notes.  .  .  . 
[My  notes]  are  simply  hints  for  good  English  not  got 
at  in  a  day.  Simplicity  is  half  of  it,  I  think,  and  in 
simplicity  I  am  as  far  to  seek  as  anybody.  But  the 
true  way  to  write  well  is  to  write  constantly, — ease  of 
style  can  only  come  by  habit ;  and  grace  of  style  can 
only  come  of  ease.  .  .  .  Above  all,  don't  let  any  idle 
fun  of  mine  make  you  think  me  careless  about  your 
work.  I  am  quite  certain  that  earnestness  of  aim  and 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  241 

energy  of  spirit  lie  at  the  root  of  right  womanhood  as 
of  right  manhood.  If  I  laugh, — it  is  only  by  way 
of  protest  against  the  occasional  exaggeration  even  of 
earnestness.  Grace  of  temper,  beauty  of  tone,  are  of 
the  essence  of  life  as  they  are  of  the  essence  of  style — 
and  there  is  sometimes  more  to  be  learnt  out  of  books 
than  in  books.  But  perhaps  these  thoughts  are  thoughts 
that  come  later  than  twenty,  and  I  am  exacting  in  ask- 
ing for  a  balance  and  moderation,  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  true  conditions  of  life,  which  only  time  and  a  bitter 
experience  can  give.  It  is  sorrow  that  gives  the  capacity 
for  laughter,  I  think  ;  it  is  the  darkness  and  the 
brokenness  and  the  disappointment  of  life  that  enable 
one  to  look  on  coolly  and  with  a  smile  even  when  one 
is  most  in  earnest.  Neither  toil  nor  the  end  of  toil  in 
oneself  or  in  the  world  is  all  vanity, — in  spite  of  the 
preacher, — but  there  is  enough  vanity  in  both  to  make 
one  sit  loose  to  them. 

What  seems  to  grow  fairer  to  me  as  life  goes  by  is 
the  love  and  peace  and  tenderness  of  it ;  not  its  wit  and 
cleverness  and  grandeur  of  knowledge,  grand  as  know- 
ledge is,  but  just  the  laughter  of  little  children  and  the 
friendship  of  friends  and  the  cosy  talk  by  the  fireside 
and  the  sight  of  flowers  and  the  sound  of  music.  .  .  . 
— Believe  me,  yours,  J.  R.  G. 


To  Miss  L.  von  Glehn  (Mrs.  Creighton) 

(1869.) 

MY  DEAR  LOUISE —  ...  I  am  coming  back  on 
Tuesday  morning  all  the  better  and  fresher  for  my  run 
out.  With  all  its  faults  of  idleness  and  littleness  there 
is  a  charm  about  Oxford  which  tells  on  one,  a  certain 
freshness  and  independence  ("it  has  never  given  itself 
over  to  the  Philistines,"  as  Mat.  Arnold  says),  and  besides 
a  certain  geniality  of  life  such  as  one  doesn't  find  else- 
where. Perhaps  its  very  blunders, — and  one  meets  a 
blunder  at  every  step  if  one  regards  it  as  a  great  educa- 

R 


242  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

tional  institution, — save  it  at  any  rate  from  falling  into 
the  mere  commonplace  of  the  Daily  Telegraph.  The 
real  peril  of  our  days  is  not  that  of  being  wrong,  but  of 
being  right  on  wrong  grounds  ;  in  a  liberalism  which  is 
a  mere  matter  of  association  and  sentiment,  and  not  of 
any  consistent  view  of  man  in  his  relation  to  society  ; 
the  Liberalism  of  the  daily  papers,  I  mean,  and  of  nine- 
tenths  of  their  readers  ;  a  Liberalism  which  enables  the 
Times  to  plead  this  morning  for  despotic  government  in 
Greece,  or  Froude  to  defend  the  rack.  And  with  all  its 
oddities  [Oxford]  seems  to  give  a  wide  toleration  and 
charity  to  the  social  intercourse  of  thinkers ;  Comtist 
and  Romaniser  laugh  together  over  High  Table  and 
are  driven  by  the  logic  of  fact  from  the  shallow  device 
of  avoiding  one  another  as  "  fools "  or  "  madmen." 
...  J-  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

VICARAGE,  MINSTER-IN-THANET, 
February  3,  1870. 

[A  Devonshire  man,  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of 
January  18,  had  challenged  a  statement  of  Huxley's 
that  "  Devonshire  men  were  as  little  Anglo-Saxon  as 
Northumbrians  were  Welsh."  Huxley  had  quoted 
Freeman  in  his  reply,  and  Freeman  now  supported 
Huxley.  See  Huxley's  Life,  i.  325.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Where  am  I  to  begin? — I  am 
overwhelmed  with  your  productiveness.  I  read  my 
hostess  here  the  "  Windham  "  letter,  and  we  were  both 
charmed  with  it.  What  capital  speaking  his  must  have 
been  !  Froude,  No.  2  is  an  improvement  on  No.  i, 
but  why  don't  you  hit  him  in  the  big  things  and  not  in 
the  little  ?  The  big  thing  is  that  Anthony  has  written 
a  history  of  England  with  England  left  out.  As  to  the 
"  Huxley,"  you  have  been  led  away  by  reverence  for 
Professors  who  reverence  you,  and  you  have  not  done 
justice  to  the  Devon  fellow.  His  point  was  that  of — 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  243 

not  so  much  the  language  which  might  be  an  after-im- 
portation, as  the  local  names  of  Devon  which  couldn't, — 
and  to  my  mind  the  point  is  an  absolutely  conclusive 
one,  none  the  less  so  that  Huxley  said  never  a  word 
about  it.  Nor  do  I  go  with  you  in  the  great  weight 
you  attach  to  the  designation  of  the  two  counties, — it 
implies  a  difference,  but  what  amount  of  difference  must 
surely  be  ascertained  from  just  the  Devon-man's  sort  of 
arguments.  Ah  me, — when  I  exhorted  you  to  be  civil 
to  Huxley  I  didn't  mean  you  to  go  and  slay  innocent 
folk  in  order  to  reconcile  him  to  his  own  execution. 

The  news  of  Volume  IV.  is  delightful,  but  why  pound 
me  with  your  virtue  and  your  Alfredian  "  systems  " 
when  you  know  I  am  pinned  down  to  three  hours  a  day, 
*'  and  no  more,"  saith  Clark  the  Despot.  I  am  getting 
on  with  Little  Book  in  the  said  three  hours,  much 
quickened  by  the  sight  of  Ebbs-fleet  and  a  walk  every 
noontide  to  the  upland  just  over  the  village  where 
Ethelbert  met  Augustine  (sayeth  the  legend).  Imagine 
Sitwell,  with  whom  I  am  staying  in  the  most  charming 
of  parsonages  close  by  one  of  the  noblest  of  churches, 
having  Ebbs-fleet  within  his  pastoral  charge, — being  as 
I  told  him  to  his  great  bewilderment  "Spiritual  Super- 
visor of  the  Origins  of  Church  and  State."  I  fancy 
he  thought  it  was  a  Chinese  title  of  some  sort. 

Ebbs-fleet  is  a  little  lift  of  higher  ground  on  the 
brink  of  Minster  Marsh, — a  mere  gravel  bank  with  a 
few  homesteads  clustered  on  it,  cut  off  from  the  sea 
nowadays  by  a  meadow  and  a  sea-wall.  But  the  scene 
has  a  sort  of  wild  vast  beauty  about  it, — to  the  right 
the  white  curve  of  Ramsgate  cliffs  and  the  crescent 
of  Pegwell  Bay, — far  away  to  the  left  over  the  levels  of 
Minster  Marsh,  where  the  smoke-wreaths  dispersing 
the  thin  brooding  mist  tell  of  Richborough  and  Sand- 
wich, the  dim  distant  line  of  the  cliffs  of  Dover  and 
Deal.  As  one  walks  away  from  the  sea,  one  follows  the 
road  which  must  have  been  Hengist's  and  Augustine's 
along  the  little  gravel-ridge  north-eastward  to  the  chalk 
uplands  above  Minster,  and  then  there  breaks  on  one  a 


244  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

noble  view  of  the  great  belt  of  sea  round  Thanet,  and 
far  away  over  the  marshes  the  tower  of  Canterbury. 

You  dear  old  sceptic, — you'll  say  that's  tall  talk, — 
but  it  aint. 

And  please  write.  I  am  a  little  doubtful  about  this 
place, — but  I  will  wait  before  forming  conclusions.  If 
I  can  bear  it,  it  will  do  me  good.  As  it  is,  I  am  no 
worse,  I  think. 

Good-bye. — Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

MINSTER,  ISLE  OF  THANET, 
February  6,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  DAWKINS — I  ran  down  here  a  week  ago 
to  give  a  jog  to  my  lung  which  has  as  yet  shown  no 
tendency  to  reparation,  though  I  hope  all  further 
damage  is  pretty  well  arrested.  However  I  haven't 
done  much  good  yet, — the  weather  has  been  so  gloomy 
and  the  wind  so  keen. 

The  S.'s  have  got  a  charming  parsonage  here,  with  a 
noble  Norman  church,  most  of  it  early  twelfth  century, 
but  with  E.  E.  chancel  and  transepts,  and  at  the  west 
end  a  fragment  of  an  older  church  of  Cnut's  day  I 
fancy.  All  round  the  country  is  historic  enough. 
Richborough  and  Reculver  are  only  a  few  miles  off,  the 
chalk  hill  above  us  is  where  ^Ethelbert  met  Augustine, 
and  at  two  miles'  distance  is  Ebbs-fleet,  where  the  first 
Englishmen  landed,  and  the  first  missionaries. 

I  wish  you  were  here  if  only  to  coach  me  about 
Minster-Level,  the  great  flat  which  stretches  from 
Sandwich  to  the  Downs  westward  of  Thanet.  In  the 
Roman  time  it  was  a  great  sea-harbour,  in  Bede's  time 
it  was  three-quarters  of  a  mile  across,  ships  seem  to  have 
gone  through  it  as  late  as  the  thirteenth  century.  Now 
it  is  a  great  flat  of  marsh-meadows,  with  Stour  running 
through  it,  a  narrow  river  with  a  deep  cut  (artificial  ?) 
bed.  So  great  a  change  so  dated  is  notable,  and  no 
doubt  you  have  a  good  deal  to  say  about  it.  Is  Thanet 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  245 

rising  still  ?  that  is  I  suppose  what  the  fall  of  the  cliffs 
means, — and  at  what  rate  ?  I  should  be  glad  of  all  you 
could  tell  me. 

In  the  quiet  here  Little  Book  gets  on.  It  was 
horrible  work  to  condense  the  English  Conquest  into 
five  pages  and  the  Conversion  into  six  and  yet  be 
interesting,  but  I  think  I  have  managed  pretty  well. 
Do  you  "  mind "  having  once  told  me  about  a  new 
breed  of  cattle  having  been  brought  over  by  the  English, 
— the  big  breed  as  distinct  from  the  smaller  British 
Galloways  ?  Do  you  still  think  so  ?  It  is  a  very  im- 
portant point  indeed,  and  your  conclusion,  so  far  as  I 
remember  it,  seemed  a  fair  deduction  from  the  facts. 
But  let  me  know  whether  you  still  adhere  to  it. 

Let  me  hear  from  you  ;  letters  cheer  me  very  much 
now  ;  and  remember  me  to  your  wife  and  to  Ward,  and 
believe  me  yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
March  5,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  DAX — Your  note  followed  me  to  town, 
for  I  had  to  run  away  from  Minster,  which  suddenly 
became  east-windy  and  has  thrown  me  back  a  good  bit. 
Indeed  I  took  to  spitting  blood  at  Addington  a  week 
ago  on  my  visit  to  the  Archbishop,  but  it  lasted  a  very 
wee  time  and  has  not  returned  since.  Altogether  I 
can't  give  a  very  satisfactory  report  of  myself.  I  am 
certainly  not  so  well  as  I  was  when  you  saw  me  ;  and 
the  long  dull  evenings  in  these  dull  lodgings  when  one 
is  weary  with  work  depress  one  sadly. 

The  best,  indeed  the  only  good  edition  of  the  Leges 
is  that  published  by  Longmans  for  the  Record 
Commissioners,  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales. 
Edited  by  Aneurin  Owen  in  1841,  either  I  volume 
folio  or  2  volumes  octavo,  price  35.  6d.  The  passage 
from  Howel  Dda  is  certainly  very  important,  and  I 
ought  to  thank  you  very  much  for  your  note  about  the 


246  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

cattle-breeds.  But  I  am  anxious  not  to  blunder.  As  I 
understand  you,  you  distinguish  between  three  varieties 
or  breeds:  I.  the  Urus  ;  2.  the  short-horned  or  Gallo- 
way ;  3.  the  "  white  cattle  with  red  ears."  No.  i  is 
extinct  before  arrival  of  Romans.  No.  2  is  found 
occurring  in  the  remains  of  the  period  of  Roman 
occupation, — but  never  in  Early  English  times.  No. 
3  is  never  found  in  remains  of  Roman  occupation  period. 
Is  this  so,  and  if  so  is  the  breed  No.  3  the  progenitor  of 
our  present  cattle  ?  And  is  your  own  feeling  that  the 
progenitors  of  our  present  cattle  must  have  been 
brought  over  by  the  first  English  settlers  ?  It  is  a 
very  important  matter. 

Tell  Ward  when  you  see  him  that  after  repeated 
conferences  with  Macmillan  I  find  it  impossible  to  get 
the  Historical  Review  afloat.  An  editor  is  the  thing 
wanted  (he  would  pay  one),  and  my  unhappy  illness 
stops  the  way.  Still  if  there  is  any  one  whom  Ward 
could  suggest  something  might  yet  be  done. 

I  hear  odd  news  from  Oxford  about  Ruskin  and  his 
lectures.  The  last  was  attended  by  more  than  1000 
people,  and  he  electrified  the  Dons  by  telling  them  that 
a  chalk-stream  did  more  for  the  education  of  the  people 
than  their  prim  "  national  school  with  its  well-taught 
doctrine  of  Baptism  and  gabbled  Catechism."  Also 
"  that  God  was  in  the  poorest  man's  cottage,  and  that  it 
was  advisable  He  should  be  well  housed."  I  think  we 
were  ten  years  too  soon  for  the  fun  ! 

Freeman's  little  work  is  selling  bravely,  —  500  a 
month,  Mac  tells  me, — altogether  he  has  sold  about 
3000  copies,  and  it  goes  on.  Pike  has  been  prodding 
him  in  Anthropological  Review  rather  cleverly,  and 
E.  A.  F.  don't  like  it  at  all. 

Write  soon  and  let  me  hear  a  heap  about  yourself 
and  your  goings  out  and  coming  in.  Give  my  best 
remembrances  to  your  wife,  and  believe  me,  —  Ever 
yours,  dear  Dax,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  247 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 

ST.  JAMES'S  ST., 

[1870]. 

[Sir  John  Seeley  succeeded  Kingsley  as  Professor  of 
Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  in  the  autumn  of 
1869.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  have  had  a  bad  time  of  it 
lately,  a  cold  which  threw  me  back  again  and  left 
me  utterly  weak  and  depressed.  "  You  will  have  to 
begin  again,"  says  my  doctor.  I  can  fancy  a  time 
coming  when  I  shall  be  weary  of  beginning  again.  I 
sent  you  that  Alfred's  life  to  show  you  what  your 
book  is  doing  and  how  easily  small  boys  take  to  it 
and  its  method.  I  should  of  course  have  written, 
but  there  are  times  when  I  cant  write,  as  you  of  all 
people  ought  to  know.  Don't  be  angry  at  my  writing 
to-day  to  Smith  to  decline  doing  the  Quarterly  article. 
It  became  (absurd,  you  will  say)  a  positive  pain  to  me, 
I  couldn't  sleep  because  of  it.  As  it  is  I  go  quietly 
on  with  Little  Book,  which  somehow  soothes  me.  I 
have  sent  on  A.'s  letter,  but  what  nonsense  his  "  plan 
of  campaign "  is !  What  does  he  think  of  Nelson 
and  Collingwood  ? — does  he  blame  them  for  not  attack- 
ing Napoleon's  flotilla  in  1801  ?  And  yet  the  flotilla 
were  always  on  the  water  and  off  shore — whereas 
Will's  boats  were  up  a  river-estuary,  and  high  up  on 
land,  I  take  it.  You  call  A.  "  historical " — to  me, 
in  all  his  judgments,  moral  and  physical,  there  is  an 
absolute  want  of  the  historical  sense.  They  are  sheer 
anachronisms.  All  that  "  hatred  "  of  Duke  William — 
what  a  sort  of  mad  herophobia  it  is!  Take  him 
altogether  and  take  him  in  his  time  and  he  is  surely 
among  the  greatest  of  men.  But  great  men  are  always 
a  puzzle  to  the  Philistines  —  to  your  "  right-and- 
wrong,"  your  "  truth  and  falsehood "  people.  I 
should  have  thought  a  sense  of  humour — of  the  frog 


248  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  bull  type — would  have  made  A.  abstain  from 
talk  of  "  abhorring  "  the  Duke. 

But  everybody  is  going  in  for  "  strong  forms." 
Ruskin  lectures  on  Art  at  Oxford,  and  tells  1000 
people  (Stubbs  gets  20)  that  a  chalk  stream  does  more 
for  education  than  100  National  Schools  "with  all  their 
doctrines  of  Baptismal  Regeneration  into  the  bargain." 
Also  that  cottages  ought  to  be  repaired,  because 
"God  lives  in  the  poor  man's  hovel,  and  it's  as  well 
He  should  be  well  housed."  To  all  which  Vice- 
Chancellor  and  Heads  of  Houses  listen  plaintively. 

I  am  much  angered  by  Seeley's  fling  off  at  Cam- 
bridge. It  is  a  half-ignorant,  half-contemptuous  fling 
at  his  own  Chair.  He  sees  the  blunder  of  contrasting 
the  utility  of  " modern "  and  "ancient"  history,  and 
then  repeats  it  in  another  form  by  deifying  Cobden  for 
declaring  "  present  history  "  the  only  study  for  sensible 
men.  He  is  just  like  the  classical  people  who  want 
to  know  Greek  and  don't  care  for  philology.  And 
what  does  he  mean  by  "present"  history?  1788  is 
no  more  present  than  1588,  and  the  Armada  tells 
presently  on  us  as  much  as  the  French  Revolution. 
He  cites  Lord  Palmerston,  but  if  ever  there  was  a 
case  of  utterly  past  history  it  is  his.  Moreover, 
"the  end  of  the  study  of  history  is  to  make  a  man" 
not  a  historian,  but  "  a  politician  "  !  What  is  the  end 
then  of  the  study  of  politics,  or  does  he  consider  them 
one  and  the  same  ?  Seriously,  Kingsley  never  talked 
such  rubbish  as  this. 

Good-bye.  I  am  afeared  the  tone  of  this  ain't 
pretty,  but  I  am  very  tired  and  down.  Good-bye. — 
Ever  yours  affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  ST.,  April  1870  ? 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  I  am  afraid  I  must  not 
venture  after  all  down  to  Somerleaze  till  the  summer 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  249 

is  in  full  swing.  My  face  is  quite  fat  and  I  look 
better  than  I  have  looked  for  years  ;  but  no  real  good 
has  been  done  and  the  least  cold  throws  me  back  for 
weeks.  Even  now  I  have  not  quite  got  over  the  ill 
results  of  my  visit  to  Minster  ;  and  I  am  afraid  Somer- 
leaze  lies  too  low  for  me  to  venture  on  just  yet.  It  is 
all  very  provoking,  but  I  am  learning  slowly  that  there 
is  no  way  of  getting  better,  but  that  of  "  taking  care 
in  little  things  "  —slowly,  for  it  is  a  sore  trial  to  care 
about  "  little  things,"  and  life  becomes  hardly  worth 
having  at  the  price. 

Private.  I  have  agreed  to  set  going  for  Macmillan 
a  series  of  historic  biographies  which  I  think  we  talked 
of  when  we  dined  together  at  Tooting.  Of  course  I 
wouldn't  take  it  in  hand  if  I  did  not  think  it  could  be 
done  honestly  and  truthfully,  and  yet  with  a  certain 
largeness  of  treatment  which  should  make  the  men 
types  of  their  time.  A  short  book  need  not  be 
shallow,  and  a  large  book  need  not  be  big.  I  have 
set  my  heart  on  your  doing  Caesar  for  me — for  good 
or  ill  he  is  Rome,  and  I  don't  like  people  to  be  left 
blindfold  to  Mommsen  and  such  like.  If  Bryce  will 
do  Charles  the  Great,  and  Church  Dante,  and  Goldwin 
Smith  President  Lincoln,  and  you  Caesar,  the  rest  of 
the  series  would  take  the  right  sort  of  tone  and  all 
would  go  well.  You  may  just  as  well  make  £250  out 
of  350  octavo  pages  of  not  much  type  as  not,  and  the 
work  is  work  you  have  done  already.  A  simple  series 
of  this  sort  would  do  a  great  deal  for  the  historic 
education  of  English  people  who — poor  souls — cry 
aloud  for  decent  histories,  and  can't  get  'em. 

This  is  my  list  as  it  stands  :  i .  Gotama  Buddha, 
and  Confucius.  2.  David.  3.  Pericles.  4.  Socrates. 
5.  Alexander.  6.  Hannibal.  7.  Caesar.  8.  Con- 
stantine.  9.  Mohammed.  10.  Charles  the  Great, 
n.  Hildebrand.  12.  Dante.  13.  Columbus.  14. 
Michael  Angelo.  15.  Luther.  16.  Bacon.  17.  Crom- 
well. 1 8.  Newton.  19.  Voltaire.  20.  Mozart.  21. 
Napoleon.  22.  Goethe.  23.  Abraham  Lincoln. 


250  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  have  finished  the  first  chapter  of  Little  Book,  and 
Macmillan  is  going  to  set  it  up  in  type — so  that  one 
may  have  a  guide  to  go  by.  Don't  think  me  idle 
about  it  or  other  things — I  do  some  bit  of  work  every 
day,  but  work  is  very  hard  when  one  is  weak  and 
disheartened.  Moreover  I  have  put  a  great  deal  of 
work  into  what  I  have  done  and  have  rewritten  it 
again  and  again  to  get  it  to  my  liking.  I  hope  it  will 
have  gotten  to  yours — though  you  will  have  to  forgive 
my  "  fancies  "  now  and  then.  But  even  at  the  risk  of 
fancies  on,e  must  strive  to  get  something  like  order  out 
of  that  mere  chaos  of  early  history  as  your  Lappen- 
bergs  write  it.  If  I  fail,  I  have  at  any  rate  fought. 

How  delightful  this  sunshine  is  ;  if  you  only  knew 
how  I  longed  for  the  spring,  and  how  wearily  the 
winter  rolled  by  !  I  have  no  news  to  tell  you — so  I 
won't  write  more.  Let  me  hear  from  you  de  Cassare, 
and  about  your  view  of  my  choice  of  men.  I  thought 
a  good  deal  over  the  list  but  no  doubt  it  has  blots 
enough.  And  tell  me  all  about  yourself  and  Big 
Book.  In  some  ways  the  next  volume  will  test  your 
powers  more  than  any  of  its  predecessors,  I  mean  in 
the  social  and  economic  parts,  matters  on  which  you 
have  said  little  as  yet.  But  you  can  say  lots  if  you 
like. 

Good-bye.  I  could  not  go  down  to  Cox  at 
Paschal-tide. — Yours  ever,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 

ST.  JAMES'S  ST., 

(May  1870?) 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Many  thanks  for  your  sug- 
gestions. Theodoric  was  in  my  original  list,  but  some- 
how slipped  out.  He  clearly  represents  the  new 
Teutonic  element  in  Europe.  Belisarius  I  don't  see. 
Big  William  ought  in  many  ways  to  come  in — if  only 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  251 

as  the  last  of  the  Northmen — but  your  book  would 
render  him  impossible,  I  am  afraid.  Fred.  II.  is 
grandly  individual,  but  hardly  a  representative  man. 
Still  there  is  an  absurd  gap  between  Hildebrand  and 
Dante,  what  do  you  think  of  Earl  Simon  ?  Bryce 
puts  Francis  of  Assisi ;  Dalgairns  whom  I  met  t'other 
day,  S.  Thomas  Aquinas  ;  but  Simon  seems  to  me  to 
represent  the  influence  which  the  Friars  and  Scholasticism 
exercized  on  Europe  at  large,  and  to  combine  with  this 
the  representation  of  the  new  feeling  of  nationality,  and 
of  constitutional  freedom,  and  of  democracy.  Charles 
Fifth  is  a  mere  hook  to  hang  history  on — Luther  is 
the  soul  of  that  time.  Will,  the  Silent  I  must  think 
over,  I  like  him  so  much  that  I  shan't  be  very 
prejudiced  against  him. 

I  chose  Caesar  because  I  thought  (i)  that  you  had 
written  about  him,  and  (2)  that  you  would  like  to  put 
all  that  horrid  stuff  of  Mommsen  a  bit  right.  But 
Alexander  would  suit  admirably  if  you  would  take  it. 
Pericles  you  could  do  on  the  political  side,  but  his 
art — his  literature — his  social  side  you  would  turn  up 
your  nose  at,  and  these  are  what  I  want  him  for. 
Charles  Great  I  want  for  Bryce,  if  that  shyest  of  fish  is 
in  any  wise  to  be  landed. 

The  Globe  announced  him  t'other  day  as  Regius 
Professor  of  Civil  Law  —  isn't  it  too  good  to  be 
true  ? 

Tell  me  when  you  go  to  your  Warwicks  and 
Shrewsburies,  and  above  all  to  your  Peaks — I  am  in 
very  vagrant  mood — ordered  to  be  vagrant  in  fact — 
and  if  there  be  an  ounce  of  sunshine  you  may  count 
on  my  coming.  I  am  delighted  you  have  made  out 
Exeter  ;  and  as  to  Lincoln  I  have  always  gone  in  for 
wild  enthusiasm  ever  since  I  dug  up  its  "  law-men  "  as 
late  as  Henry  I.  But  who  is  Coleswegen  ?  He  looks 
as  if  Cnut's  father  had  somehow  got  potted  in  the 
Brompton  Boilers ! 

I  keep  on  getting  better  ;  I  never  was  so  fat  and 
comely  in  my  life,  and  my  lung  has  begun  to  move  in 


25 2  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

the  right  road.  But  a  little  thing  may  upset  me  again, 
and  I  hold  my  life-tenure  to  be  worth  very  little. 
And  if  I  die  Stubbs  holds  that  I  am  d — d,  because  I 
don't  agree  with  the  Athanasian  forgery,  and  Stubbs 
is  an  accurate  man  ! 

Heigho !  I  think  I  would  take  my  chance  of 
"  Stubbs's  doom  "  if  one  could  only  get  a  peep  into 
the  darkness. 

I  have  seen  Dawkins  several  times — just  as  kind 
and  jolly  as  ever.  How  one  clings  to  old  friends  in 
the  dark  days ! 

Good-bye.  Remember  me  kindly  to  Cox,  he  has 
much  to  forgive  concerning  Easter.  Get  me  his 
absolution. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  infinitely  better,  and  I 
hope  the  improvement  is  beginning  to  look  permanent. 
I  am  entirely  free  from  cough  and  seem  strong  enough 
as  far  as  feelings  go  to  run  anywhere.  But  I  know 
unfortunately  that  one  cold  would  upset  it  all ;  and 
much  as  I  should  like  to  meet  Dickinson  and  Strachey 
— especially  to  talk  over  with  the  latter  our  little  passage 
of  arms  in  the  Pall  Mall  over  Maurice — I  must  not 
risk  it  till  the  weather  is  more  settled.  However,  I 
shall  be  seeing  Clark  to-morrow,  and  if  he  thinks  me 
the  better  for  a  run  I  will  write  and  warn  you  of  my 
advent. 

I  don't  think  the  Academy  article  the  less  damaging, 
because  it  was  "  so  d — d  civil "  as  some  one  said. 
When  we  meet  I  have  much  to  say  to  you  concerning 
Froude  and  your  warfare.  Bryce  and  I — and  there  are 
no  two  people  on  earth  who  love  you  better — agree  in 
regretting  your  last  attack.  What  I  feel  is  that  the 
publication  of  the  History  has  placed  you  in  a  very 
different  position  as  to  these  matters  from  that  which 
you  occupied  previously — placed  you  so,  that  is,  in  the 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  253 

world's  eyes,  not  mine.  And  hence  it  looks  to  the  said 
world's  eyes  as  if  one  famous  writer  was  jealous  of 
another  famous  writer.  Of  course  /  know  better  ;  but 
I  am  grieved  and  hurt  to  hear  the  sort  of  comments 
that  pass  about  the  matter,  and  the  opening  it  gives  to 
the  attacks  of  enemies  on  you.  You  won't  be  annoyed 
at  me  for  speaking  frankly,  I  know  ;  but  I  want  you 
to  come  out  of  the  arena.  You  have  floored  enough 
victims  to  satisfy  a  lifetime,  and  now  you  must  be  con- 
tent to  be  too  great  a  swell  to  indulge  in  the  pleasant 
diversion  any  more. 

Little  Book  goes  on — I  think  well,  at  least  I  know 
I  take  a  great  deal  of  pains  with  it  ;  and  pains  that 
won't  make  any  show.  I  have  finished  my  "  Mercian 
Realm"  this  morning,  and  done  a  bit  of  my  "  West-Saxon 
Realm."  We  shall  differ,  of  course,  a  good  deal  on  the 
general  philosophy  of  the  matter  ;  but  I  think  you  will 
be  pleased  with  the  work.  How  remarkable  the  rela- 
tions of  Peppin  and  Charles  the  Great  with  the  English 
realms  are  !  But  don't  think  I  have  done  much — only 
about  50  pages  of  print,  i.e.  the  first  chapter,  ending 
with  death  of  Dunstan.  Cap  II.,  "  England  under 
foreign  Kings,"  goes  from  Cnut  to  loss  of  Normandy 
under  John.  Good-bye. — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  ST., 

June  1870. 

[The  honorary  D.C.L.  degree  was  conferred  upon 
Freeman  in  June  1870.  Mr.  Bryce,  as  Regius  Profes- 
sor of  Civil  Law,  introduced  him  in  a  speech,  describing 
him  (among  other  things)  as  in  negligentiorum  hominum 
erroribus  detegendis  acerrimum,  eundemque  facetiarum 
-plenum. ] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Your  telegram  arrived  too 
late  for  the  train,  had  I  even  yielded  to  its  seductions. 


254  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

But  Ward  who  was  to  have  received  me  had  gone 
down,  and  I  was  in  straits  about  a  bed,  not  choosing  to 
run  back  the  same  even.  Moreover  hot  and  crowded 
and  rowy  places  are  just  the  places  in  which  I  have  no 
business.  So  I  reluctantly  gave  up  the  notion  of  seeing 
your  Doctorate,  great  as  the  pleasure  would  have  been. 
I  am  glad  everything  went  off  so  well, — especially  Bryce. 
What  a  charming  tongue  Latin  is  for  quizzing  in,  and 
what  a  taste  for  quiz  a  Professorship  seems  to  develop 
in  the  best  of  men !  And  Bryce  is  the  best  of  men. 
Did  he  tell  you  how  I  scraught  out  six  lines  of  per- 
sonality in  the  proof  of  my  last  Middle  after  a  walk 
and  a  talk  with  him  ? — so  great  is  the  power  of  his  walk 
and  his  talk  ! 

I  do  wish,  my  dear  Freeman,  you  would  leave  off 
poking  at  Kingsley  and  his  Dietrich.  Have  you  ever 
counted  up  the  number  of  your  references  to  that  said 
blunder  ?  And  ought  there  not  to  be  some  proportion 
between  sin  and  punishment  ?  "  Blunders  "  was  very 
good ;  but  there  are  blunders  of  taste  as  well  as 
blunders  of  fact  you  know !  I  am  glad  you  are  going 
to  create  a  new  historic  school  of  manual  writers.  Who 
your  pupils  are  I  know  not ;  but  Macmillan  says  they 
are  ladies,  which  presents  you  in  a  novel  and  fascinating 
light,  "the  Pasha  of  History  surrounded  with  his 
historic  harem !  "  as  Strangford  would  have  put  it. 
"  When  was  Freeman  made  D.C.L.  ? "  Proper  an- 
swer :  "  When  Reeve  was."  Good-bye. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  not  nearly  so  well  as  I 
was,  so  it  was  better  that  I  escaped  the  excitement  of 
Oxford.  Here  in  England  I  am  afraid  I  shall  do  no 
further  good ;  but  I  have  settled  to  go  to  San  Remo 
for  the  winter,  and  one  hopes  great  things  from  the 
Riviera. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  255 

I  send  by  the  same  post  the  proofs  of  my  first 
chapter  of  which  you  saw  a  bit.  Do  you  mind  the 
trouble  of  reading  them  over  and  giving  me  all  the 
hints  you  can  about  the  method,  the  mode  of  treatment ~, 
I  have  adopted  ?  1  am  just  now  very  blue  and  dis- 
heartened about  the  said  chapter  ;  it  ought  to  be  far 
better,  far  clearer  than  it  is,  and  I  shall  recast  the  two 
first  sections  certainly.  But  I  should  care  a  good  deal 
for  suggestions  from  you  on  this  point  because  clear- 
ness is  one  of  your  strong  points.  Have  I  tried  to  get 
in  too  much,  or  what  is  it  ?  Send  back  the  proofs 
when  you  have  done  with  them. 

Cox  comes  up  to-day  for  the  Saturday  dinner  ;  I 
don't  go  myself ;  rows  and  dinners  are  an  abomination 
to  me  just  now,  but  I  shall  probably  see  him  to-morrow. 
Ward  of  Manchester  called  the  other  day  and  agreed 
to  drop  Historical  Reviews  till  the  spring,  when  I  may 
be  well  enough  to  see  to  it.  He  was  looking  very  well. 
He  has  undertaken  Gustavus  Adolphus  for  the  series. 

Good-bye.  Kind  remembrances  to  your  people  and 
the  Historic  Harem. — Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET, 

August  '70. 

[(Sir)  George  Grove  was  at  this  time  connected 
with  Messrs.  Macmillan.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  enclose  (and  please  return) 
a  letter  from  George  Grove  who  has  read  my  proof, 
and  whom  I  asked  to  tell  me  what  he  thought  of  its 
fitness  for  "  the  upper  forms  in  schools  and  for  general 
readers."  His  verdict  is  a  very  severe  though  a  very 
kind  one — and  unfortunately  my  own  cool  judgment 
goes  with  it.  I  don't  in  the  least  mean  that  I  am 
ashamed  of  my  work  ;  I  worked  very  hard  at  it  and 
it  is  genuine  so  far  as  it  goes — but  it  does  not  hit  the 


256  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

mark  I  aimed  at,  and  what  is  worse,  I  don't  think  I 
can  hit  the  mark.  The  fact  is  that  the  first  chapter  is 
very  heavy  reading,  and  the  second  which  I  am  about 
now  is  like  unto  it.  I  won't  repeat  G.  Grove's  remarks, 
but  read  them  and  tell  me  your  own  opinion.  I  am 
going  to  see  him  on  Saturday,  and  I  shall  see  Mac- 
millan.  About  Macmillan  I  have  a  very  strong  feel- 
ing of  honour — I  offered  to  write  a  book  for  "  general 
readers,"  and  I  can't  hold  him  to  his  engagement  if  the 
book  is — as  it  is — unfit  for  them.  And  so  I  shall  tell 
him.  Please  don't  think  me  despondent, — I  want  to  be 
cool  and  fair, — and  I  am  resolved  to  write  something ; 
that  is  to  say,  if  Macmillan  agrees  as  I  think  he  will  I 
might  still  try  to  rewrite  this  chapter  in  narrative  form, 
leaving  out  50  per  cent  of  the  matter  I  have  packed 
so  tight,  and  chattering  more  diffusely  over  the  rest. 
But  I  am  almost  sure  I  can't  do  this.  If  not — then  I 
shall  at  once  begin  my  Angevin  Kings.  That  is  to  say 
I  am  determined  to  do  something,  and  if  this  failure 
has  done  nothing  else  it  has  given  me  a  longing  to 
write  what  I  write  in  <£00£-shape.  It  was  my  inability 
to  face  the  notion  of  a  book  which  kept  me  so  long 
dawdling  over  the  Angevins — now  I  seem  to  have  got 
used  to  it,  to  the  method  of  it  at  any  rate. 

Let   me   hear   more   about  your  excursion   to  the 

Waters    of    .       You    tell    me    so    little    about 

your  hand  that  I  wish  I  had  you  here  to  pump  in 
person.  For  myself  I  am  slowly  getting  on,  falling 
back  every  now  and  then,  but  getting  gradually  on 
— only,  unfortunately  (says  Clark),  still  "  miles  ofF 
where  you  were  before  you  went  to  Somerset  and 
Oxford."  I  can't  imagine  what  did  me  so  much 
harm  save  the  talk  and  jest  of  "Young  Oxford." 
But  so  it  is. 

Cox  sends  me  a  slip  from  the  Morning  Post — a 
review  in  which  all  Gladstone's  theories  about  Adam 
and  Eve  (which  Cox  only  quoted  to  abuse)  are  attri- 
buted to  him.  Cox,  and  their  promulgation  made  the 
real  aim  and  purpose  of  his  book.  It  is  certainly  very 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  257 

amusing — but  I  am  sure  Harwood  won't  let  me  do 
anything  with  it.   ... 

I  can't  go  (unless  I  were  one  of  the  Three  Children) 
to  S.  Remo  till  November.  At  present  I  am  tied  to 
town  by  need  of  seeing  my  doctor  every  four  days — 
but  I  shall  try  and  get  a  run  to  some  dry  seaside  place. 
Lyme  is,  I  find,  a  hot,  moist  hole. — Ever  yours,  dear 
Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  Did  you  ever  read  any 
novels  by  one  Fritz  Reuter,  written  in  Platt-Deutsch  ? 
I  have  just  got  a  charming  one,  In  the  Tear  Vj, 
"  translated "  (if  one  may  use  the  word  of  a  simple 
removal  "  across  the  way  "  into  English)  by  one  Lewis, 
who  sayeth,  "  The  language  in  which  the  story  is 
written  is  closely  allied  to  the  Saxon,  and  has  much 
more  resemblance  to  English  than  High  German  has  ; 
but  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  dialect,  and  bears  the  same 
relation  to  the  High  German  as  the  child's  language 
does  to  the  man's."  Is  not  this  charming — especially 
that  "  nevertheless  "  ?  The  book  suits  me  just  now, 
for  it  is  full,  from  top  to  bottom,  of  abuse  of  the  French, 
and  revives  my  spirits  after  reading  Gladstone's  rigma- 
role. What  a  master  of  rigmarole  he  is  ;  nobody  else 
could  make  one  wish  Palmerston  alive  again  as  Gladdie 
is  making  almost  everybody  wish  just  now.  As  to  the 
war  I  heard  good  news  this  morning  from  France. 
A  Havre  merchant  writes,  "  I  have  met  no  merchant 
here  who  doesn't  hate  this  iniquitous  war,"  and  one 
of  the  von  Glehns  who  is  in  a  large  engineer's  office 
in  Northern  France  writes  that  every  workman  there 
condemns  it  as  "  unjust."  The  spirit  in  Germany  is 
wonderfully  good.  On  the  morning  of  the  war-news, 

s 


258  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

a  young  German  in  a  city  office  walked  straight  into 
the  counting-house  and  asked  Mr.  von  Glehn  to  allow 
him  to  start  "at  once."  "I  fought,"  he  said,  "at 
Sadowa  with  a  heavy  heart — for  it  was  German  against 
German — but  it  is  different  now !  "  That  is  a  good 
answer  to  Monsieur  Ollivier's  "  cceur  leger"  The  head 
of  a  large  lunatic  asylum  in  Hanover  writes — "  Nine  of 
my  keepers  are  gone  to  the  war  and  I  am  in  great 
straits  how  to  manage  the  patients ;  but  my  chief 
sorrow  is  that  I  cannot  go  to  the  war  myself."  I  hope 
when  the  war  is  over  they  will  just  lock  up  all  France 
— turn  it  into  a  gigantic  National  Asylum  and  keep 
every  man  of  'em  in  a  strait -waistcoat.  Humphry 
Ward,  who  is  at  Lannion  in  Brittany,  writes  of  a 
French  Marquis  of  "  the  old  rock  "  who  loafs  about 
there  pleasantly  and  approves  the  war.  "  France  can 
only  keep  together  by  a  fight  every  five  years,"  he 
said, — whereon  Ward,  who  is  a  good-tempered  fellow, 
thought  that  "  the  sooner  she  went  to  pieces  the 
better,"  which  the  Marquis  didn't  like. 

As  to  myself  and  my  own  work,  without  going  with 
you  on  the  Grove  question — for  I  still  think  his  com- 
ments very  frank  and  valuable — I  confess  I  am  braced 
up  again  by  your  letter.  I  shall  alter  much  of  what  I 
have  done  ;  but  I  shall  go  on.  On  a  point  of  this 
kind  your  judgment  is  so  weighty  that  I  feel  bound  to 
accept  it, — at  any  rate  to  the  extent  of  trying  to  do 
something  with  the  book.  It  won't  be  what  I  wanted 
it  to  be,  but  if  it  does  some  good  I  shall  feel  abundantly 
rewarded ;  and  my  feeling  of  delicacy  about  Mac- 
millan  is  removed  by  his  hearty  letter  of  encourage- 
ment this  week.  But  I  shall  also  go  on  with  the 
Angevins  (i)  because  I  have  reopened  the  old  note- 
books and  am  simply  astonished  at  the  work  I  have 
done  for  it,  so  much  is  all  but  ready  for  the  press  that 
it  seems  absurd  to  leave  it  alone  ;  (2)  because  it  is  a 
relief  to  me — so  I  find — from  the  Little  Book  which  is 
hard  and  not  interesting  work  ;  and  (3)  because  I  see 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  259 

that  Little  Book  will  do  nothing  for  one's  historic 
fame  except  among  a  little  group  of  good  people.  I 
did  this  morning  an  appendix  on  the  Sources  of 
Angevin  history  ;  in  which,  I  think,  :I  have  made  out 
the  real  character  of  the  Gesta — a  difficult  point,  as 
you  know,  when  taken  in  relation  to  the  work  of 
Thomas  of  Loches  and  the  Gesta  Ambaziensium  Domi- 
norum.  The  real  second  part  of  the  latter  work  I 
believe  to  be  lost ;  and  the  Gesta  which  now  stands  as 
such  a  second  part  to  be  really  a  revision  of  it  by  John 
of  Marmoutiers  —  so  that  D'Achery's  arrangement, 
though  unwarranted  by  MS.,  is  practically  right. 
Marty ^  many  thanks.  Good-bye. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
August  31,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  wish  I  could  have  been 
with  you  on  your  northern  campaign — the  more  that 
Durham  is  the  one  English  place  I  long  to  see,  and 
"  Basda's  own  choir  standing "  would  drive  me  wild 
with  delight.  But  quiet  and  boredom  are  the  only 
things  that  do  me  good  ;  they  are  setting  me  right 
again — and  then  the  sunshine  and  the  war !  Not  that 
I  go  wholly  with  you  in  your  prayers  that  the  Gal- 
Welsh  be  cut  short ;  I  am  German  to  the  core,  but 
like  Joan  of  Arc  I  have  pity  for  that  bel  royaume  de 
France.  How  strange  it  seems  now  to  remember  the 
night  when  you  and  I  looked  from  the  Quai  Voltaire 
over  Seine  on  the  Tuileries  and  chaunted  a  psalm  about 
a  green  bay  tree  !  But  L.  N.  B.  is  gone,  and  France 
remains,  vain,  ignorant,  insufferable  if  you  will,  but 
still  with  an  infinite  attraction  in  her,  at  least  to  me. 
There  is  a  spring,  an  elasticity  about  her,  a  "light 
heart "  that  has  its  good  as  well  as  its  bad  side,  a 
gaiety,  a  power  of  enjoyment,  which  Europe  can't 
afford  to  miss.  I  am  a  little  like  Heine,  I  think  ;  with 
an  infinite  respect  for  Berlin  I  should  prefer  living  at 
Paris.  Who  knows,  too,  what  this  war  may  do  for 


26o  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

her  ?  not  if  Germany  ensures  a  century  of  war  by  taking 
Elsass  and  Lorraine,  but  if  certain  now  of  her  own 
strength  she  leaves  France  prostrate,  convinced  of  her 
folly,  but  not  humiliated.  The  best  time  of  French 
history  followed  the  overthrow  of  '15  ;  why  should 
not  another  half  century  of  letters  and  poetry  and  art 
follow  '70?  In  spite  of  one's  historical  predilections 
the  claim  of  Elsass  is  to  me  revolting.  As  yet  the 
attitude  of  Germany  is  noble  ;  to  snatch  at  provinces 
in  the  old  style  of  Louis  XIV.  is  of  the  lowest  and 
vulgarest  ambition.  Moreover,  the  people  of  Elsass 
are  French  to  the  core  in  sympathy,  none  are  more 
bound  to  France,  and  the  treaty  that  hands  them  over 
to  a  Grand  Duke  of  Baden  is  simply  a  declaration  of 
slavery.  Men  are  not  cattle — even  if  they  have  the 
ill-luck  to  be  Frenchmen. 

But  enough  of  politics.  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  "  Prae- 
academic  Oxford,"  though  you  are  a  little  like  your 
German  friends  in  taking  my  Elsass.  Oddly  enough  I 
am  doing  a  couple  of  papers  for  George  Grove  on  the 
early  history  of  Oxford,  —  but  I  shall  wait  and  see 
whether  you  have  left  anything  for  me  to  say.  My 
greatest  delight  of  late  has  been  the  new  volume  of  Hove- 
den,  and  Stubbs's  preface  concerning  William  Long- 
champ  and  the  revolution  that  upset  him.  It  is  very 
masterly  indeed,  not  merely  in  the  routing  out  of  every- 
thing about  Longchamp  himself  and  Bishop  Puiset  (both 
highly  mysterious  folk  hitherto),  but  in  the  telling  of 
the  story.  I  don't  indeed  think  that  the  dear  Professor 
quite  likes  owning  the  greatness  of  a  "  revolution,"  and 
he  owns  this  was  one  ;  but  still  he  brings  out,  with 
singular  clearness  and  force,  how  striking  a  prelude  to  the 
Charter  this  Convention  of  London  was.  There  is  to  be 
yet  another  volume  in  whose  preface  Stubbs  will  examine 
the  constitutional  history  of  Richard's  reign.  For  which 
and  all  other  mercies  Heaven  make  us  truly  thankful ! 

I  am  all  alone  here  ;  everybody  I  know  out  of  town  ; 
but  I  am  getting  used  to  it,  and  rather  like  my  solitary 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  261 

rambles  in  the  Parks.  Still  I  am  "  truly  grateful  "  for 
letters, — so  don't  forget  to  write  to  me  soon,  and  tell 
me  all  about  your  stay  with  Macmillan.  Remember 
me  kindly  to  him  and  Mrs.  Macmillan.  I  wish  I  were 
with  you  all. 

Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

P.S. — Don't  mistake  me  about  the  war.  I  can't  kick 
France  now  she's  down,  as  Jupiter  does ;  but  the  German 
victories  are  victories  of  truth  and  right  and  intelligence. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
September  5,  1870. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN —  .  .  .  Vive  la  Republique, — 
one  can't  write  about  past  things  when  the  present  is  so 
vast,  —  when  every  telegram  comes  in  upon  one's 
thoughts  like  a  thunder-clap.  Vive  la  Republique  !  but 
will  the  Republic  live  ?  The  men  in  blouses  hooted,  as 
they  passed  it,  that  figure  on  the  column  in  the  Place 
Vendome  ;  but  what  of  the  peasants  of  Champagne  in 
whom  "the  Napoleonic  legend"  is  as  alive  as  ever,  or 
the  peasants  of  the  south  ready  to  tear  Protestants  to 
pieces  for  treason  to  the  Emperor  ?  The  army  is  gone, 
— that  is  one  thing  to  the  good, — but  will  it  be  possible 
to  raise  a  patriot  army  in  its  place  ?  And  then  the 
Republic  starts  terribly  handicapped.  In  eight  days  at 
latest  Germany  will  be  beneath  the  walls  of  Paris.  If 
the  revolution  gives  fresh  life,  fresh  enthusiasm,  it  wastes 
time  and  time  is  now  all  in  all.  Every  office  will  be  in 
confusion,  every  department  at  a  deadlock.  France 
will  be  thrown  out  of  gear  just  when  her  machinery 
needs  to  run  quickest  and  smoothest.  Submission, 
peace,  seems  inevitable  ;  but  what  a  submission,  what  a 
peace  !  Just  as  the  great  Bonaparte  threw  the  odium 
of  a  "humiliating  peace"  on  the  Bourbons,  so  the 
second  throws  it  on  the  Republic.  Is  there  a  Govern- 
ment that  would  stand  a  day  after  the  cession  of  Elsass  ? 


262  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

And  yet  the  alternative  is  the  most  frightful  jacquerie 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  looks  as  if  the  Republic 
must  sink  either  under  the  shame  of  a  peace  or  the 
horrors  of  a  Terror. 

One  forgets  all  lesser  troubles  in  the  massacres  of  day 
after  day.  But  some  have  been  just  brought  home  to 
me  here  by  the  arrival  of  an  English  clergyman's 
family  from  Compiegne  where  he  is  a  chaplain.  They 
have  been  there  for  years,  and  now  their  home  is  broken 
up  and  they  are  hurried  off;  the  father  being  allowed 
to  stay  in  charge  of  the  furniture  and  plate  which  they 
were  not  permitted  to  remove.  Their  distress  is  great, 
and  yet  of  course  nothing  to  the  bulk  of  the  40,000 
English  who  have  been  driven  away  from  Paris  and  its 
neighbourhood. 

I  am  so  lonely  here  (there  is  not  a  person  in  London  ; 
I  have  nobody  even  to  exchange  a  word  with)  that  I 
shall  take  to  Saturday  Review  work  again.  I  have  just 
sent  in  a  middle  on  Rochester  and  a  review,  and  now  I 
suppose  I  must,  to  please  Harwood,  do  a  "  light  " 
middle.  But  how  write  "  light  middles  "  with  the  guns 
of  Sedan  in  one's  ears  ?  However,  one  can  make  mock 
of  one's  own  ailments, — so  I  shall  offer  up  myself  and 
my  doctor. 

September  13. — Thanks  for  your  letter.  Even  the 
seduction  of  a  Dukedom  for  Bryce  won't  bring  me 
over  to  your  "  partition  Treaty."  The  fact  is  I  am  a 
little  puzzled  with  "  Liberals  "  who  go  in  for  enslaving 
Lorraine  and  turning  Elsass,  as  Bismarck  puts  it,  into 
a  "  German  Venetia."  It  is  not  a  question  of  loving 
France  or  loving  Germany.  It  is  a  question  of  falling 
back  on  the  platform  of  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  and 
dealing  with  peoples  as  if  they  were  cyphers.  Your 
indifference!  to  the  will  of  the  people  themselves  is  of 
the  old  Tory  and  Metternich  order.  I  never  yet  met  a 
French  provincial  to  whom  France  was  not  more  than 
his  own  province.  In  Normandy,  for  instance,  you 
never  could  get  a  Norman  to  see  things  in  your  way. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  263 

Alsatians  I  meet  now  every  day  at  Sydenham  ;  they 
speak  German,  but  they  are  French  to  the  core.  There 
can  be  no  question  about  the  Lorrainers.  The  truth  is 
you  care  a  good  deal  for  freedom  in  the  past, — but  in 
the  present  you  hate  France  more  than  you  love  liberty. 

I  have  just  seen  a  lot  of  letters  from  Paris,  etc.,  and 
the  tone  is  very  despairing  indeed.  At  Paris  "  no  one 
will  fight  but  the  Garde  Nationale.  The  soldiers  are 
panic -struck  and  mutinous."  At  Havre  Trochu 
ordered  the  town  to  defend  itself,  but  this  involved  a 
demolition  of  the  villas  on  the  heights  and  the  merchants 
declared  the  sacrifice  "  useless."  All  the  letters  cry  for 
peace,  peace  "  on  any  terms."  So  it  is  possible  you  may 
play  chuck-farthings  with  the  rights  of  peoples  as  you 
wish.  My  one  hope  is  in  Bismarck. 

I  am  sorry  about  the  Deanery  business.  But  the 
tendency  to  turn  the  Church  into  a  casual  ward  is,  I 
know,  irresistible.  I  am  glad  to  be  out  of  it.  Good- 
bye.— Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

NEW  UNIVERSITY  CLUB, 
ST.  JAMES'S  STREET,  S.W. 

[John  Byrne  Leicester  Warren  (1835-1891),  after- 
wards Lord  de  Tabley,  the  poet,  was  an  old  friend  of 
Green's.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Leicester  Warren  has  just  done 
a  kindly  thing,  offering  to  lay  my  name  before  some 
connection  of  his  who  has  a  living  of  some  300  people 
and  as  many  pounds,  and  who  is  looking  out  for  a 
Vicar.  But  though  I  am  far  better  than  I  once  hoped 
to  be,  I  mustn't  think  of  livings  just  yet.  The  least 
thing  throws  me  back  ;  I  read  service  at  St.  Philip's  a 
Sunday  or  two  ago  by  way  of  trial,  and  my  cough 
increased  at  once.  You  will  see  how  utterly  out  of  the 
question  your  proposal  to  help  Dimock  would  be. 
Clearly  my  wise  course  is  to  spend  this  next  winter  and 


264  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

spring  in  Italy,  and  so  hope  to  come  back  patched  up 
into  some  practical  form  for  the  coming  year.  I  have 
settled  upon  S.  Remo  in  the  Corniche,  and  should  like, 
— if  my  companion  Lambert  could  go  at  once, — to  get 
there  by  Germany,  Antwerp,  Koln,  Nuremberg,  Inns- 
pruck,  and  the  Brenner, — the  other  Alpine  passes  would 
be  too  cold  for  me  now,  and  France-way  is  closed.  In 
this  way  I  could  peep  at  Milan  and  Genoa,  and  so  get 
along  the  "  Corniche  "  to  S.  Remo. 

My  friend  Gabriel  Monod  came  hither  the  other 
day  on  his  way  with  the  French  Protestant  ambulance 
which  he  is  aiding  from  Sedan  to  the  lines  before  Paris. 
I  think  if  you  knew  him  you  would  believe  there  are 
good  Frenchmen  even  out  of  Normandy, — though  by- 
the-bye  his  family  is  Danish  and  his  birthplace  Havre  ! 
It  was  odd  to  get  so  close  a  sight  of  the  eve  of  Sedan  as 
he  gave  me.  The  ambulance  was  at  Rancourt,  the  next 
village  to  Beaumont,  when  the  French  soldiers  came 
pouring  in,  weary,  starved,  mutinous.  They  had  had 
no  rations  for  two  days,  and  snatched  at  the  few  loaves 
which  Monod  could  give  them,  while  others  plundered 
the  fields  round  for  potatoes.  Then  all  flung  them- 
selves down  to  sleep  as  they  could,  and  the  Imperial 
staff  came  clattering  along  the  streets, — the  Emperor, 
old,  way-worn,  covered  with  dust,  his  cheeks  pasty-pale, 
his  hair  and  moustache  gray-white,  entering  the  house 
out  of  which  the  Monods  had  been  turned  for  his  ac- 
commodation. All  night  long  thousands  came  straggl- 
ing in, — flinging  themselves  down  exhausted  for  a  few 
hours'  sleep.  At  early  morning  the  Emperor's  horse 
was  called  for,  and  the  suite  appeared  all  spick  and  span 
in  the  midst  of  the  mob  of  soldiery,  Napoleon  himself 
at  the  door,  "  painted  to  the  eyes "  said  Monod,  his 
hair  and  moustache  dyed  and  waxed  again.  One  or 
two  peasants  cried  Vive  rEmpereur, — -the  soldiers  looked 
on  grimly,  and  some  shouted  back  A  bas  I 'assassin  and 
the  filthiest  words  of  abuse.  Napoleon  passed  a  group 
of  officers  on  his  way  to  his  horse  ;  he  took  off  his  hat 
and  made  a  low  salute,  but  not  one  responded.  "  Why 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  265 

does  not  somebody  shoot  the  scoundrel  ?  "  said  a  captain 
aloud  to  Monod  as  "  the  scoundrel  "  passed  by.  Then 
the  cannon  opened  from  the  woods,  and  the  officers 
rode  in  vain  to  the  front  striving  to  form  and  drag  up 
their  men, — but  the  soldiers  were  a  mere  mob,  cursing, 
scattering  for  food,  flying  "  like  sheep,"  while  the 
officers  swore  and  quarrelled  with  one  another,  and  De 
Failly  and  his  staff  rode  about  like  men  "  lost."  Then 
came  work  with  the  wounded  and  Monod  saw  no  more. 
What  an  awful  opening  of  those  awful  Three  Days ! 
Imagine  that  man  with  his  thoughts  falling  back  to  the 
courtyard  at  Strasbourg  where  soldiers  had  shouted 
abuse  at  him  thirty  years  before.  What  an  interval  of 
time,  of  events,  to  bring  him  back  only  to  the  same 
curses  !  .  .  . 

Good-bye.     Write  a  long  letter. — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

DUE  TORRI,  VERONA, 

October  31,  1870. 

[Green's  companion  was  the  Rev.  Brooke  Lambert, 
afterwards  Vicar  of  Greenwich.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN —  ...  I  am  writing  at 
Brussels,  and  have  spun  through  a  bit  of  France  from 
Calais  to  Lille  just  to  get  a  glimpse  of  it  under  stress 
of  war.  Mob-lots  lounged  idly  about  Calais,  a  weedy, 
boyish  lot,  fresh  from  the  plough,  and  "  Nationals " 
were  at  the  gates.  Calais  is  dull  and  desolate — no 
mails  for  Paris — packets  bringing  in  a  dozen  instead 
of  two  hundred  passengers.  But  it  was  not  till  we 
got  to  Lille  that  we  saw  war  at  hand.  The  poplar- 
rows  were  roughly  thinned,  and  the  trees  left  were 
stripped  to  the  top  to  rob  the  enemy  of  cover  ;  new 
forts  were  being  busily  thrown  up,  the  sticky  soil 
aiding  admirably,  and  rows  of  comfortable  houses  stood 
empty  and  doomed,  ready  to  be  blown  up  at  the  first 


266  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

appearance  of  the  Germans.  King  Will's  announce- 
ment of  the  surrender  of  Metz  met  us  (of  all  places 
in  the  world)  at  Aachen  ;  flags  and  streamers  an- 
nounced it  at  Koln  ;  fifty  guns  in  honour  of  it  woke  us 
at  Maintz  next  morning.  It  was  odd  to  be  sweeping 
along  quietly  on  the  very  skirts  of  the  great  storm. 
Troop-trains  passed  us,  honest  German  faces  looking 
cheerily  out  of  windows  ;  sick  and  wounded  limped 
about  the  platform  at  Koln  ;  one  poor  boy,  a  mere 
boy,  all  pale  and  worn,  with  a  shot  through  his 
shoulder,  supping  his  onion  soup  in  a  corner,  and 
people  stopping  to  say  a  cheerful  word  to  him  and 
pass  on.  Johanniter  knights,  too,  very  fierce  creatures 
with  very  long  swords,  guarding  piles  of  red-cross 
luggage,  and  red-cross  trains  passing  us  on  the  road 
as  we  swept  down  the  valley  of  Main  and  away  to 
Miinchen.  Pleasant  for  you  folk  who  "  rejoice  in 
war "  as  the  Psalmist  says,  but  I  am  a  poor  weak- 
nerved  creature  who  have  seen  too  much  human 
suffering  in  my  time  to  think  the  world  needs  more  of 
it  than  God  gives  it,  and  all  the  telegrams  and  bunting 
and  guns  in  the  world  won't  make  me  forget  that 
white  boy's  face  at  K6ln. 

But  then  you  know,  I  shiver  even  at  an  honest  bit 
of  cold,  at  the  cold  of  the  Rhine,  at  the  colder  of  the 
Iser,  at  the  coldest,  dreariest,  sleetiest  of  Innspruck. 
Brooke  wrapped  me  in  a  great  fur  cloak  wherein  I  lay 
like  a  dormouse,  or  heaven  knows  how  I  escaped  colds 
— "  colds  being  death  with  you "  as  my  sententious 
Scotch  doctor  pithily  puts  it.  I  don't  know  what  I 
should  have  done  if  it  hadn't  been  for  my  companion, 
Lambert,  a  rough  strong  fellow  with  all  the  tenderness 
and  gentleness  of  a  woman  ;  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
Virgil  too,  whose  ALneid  I  took  with  me  and  find 
charming  beyond  measure.  I  had  never  read  it  since  I 
rushed  through  it  in  schoolboy  fashion  with  my  tutor 
at  Leamington.  But  even  Virgil  looked  chill  the 
morning  we  left  Innspruck  with  a  cold  sleet  driving  on 
the  windows  and  the  landlord's  assurance  that  "  it 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  267 

would  be  worse  over  the  Brenner."  And  lo  !  our  woes 
were  over.  I  had  been  before  over  the  Brenner  by 
night,  and  anything  more  desolate  I  cannot  fancy — but 
by  day  and  such  a  day  nothing  could  be  lovelier. 
"  No  scenery "  you  say ;  very  well,  only  sunshine, 
"  real  sunshine  "  as  one  little  English  boy  said  as  we 
flung  off  our  wraps,  and  sprang  out  on  the  warm 
platform  at  Brixen.  .  .  .  Good-bye,  dear  Freeman. — 
Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Louise  von  Glehn 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
November  25,  1870. 

...  It  is  curious  to  watch  the  little  glimpses  of 
Italian  life  which  one  gets  in  the  little  world  of  San 
Remo.  Take  the  priesthood  for  instance.  Recent 
changes  have  diminished  their  number,  but  the  "  black 
gentry "  still  swarm  here,  and  over  the  poor  and 
women  their  influence  remains  as  strong  as  ever.  They 
are  keen  in  their  hopes  about  England  and  the 
Puseyites,  whom  by  a  felicitous  pun  they  always  term 
Posaista  (posture-makers).  But  with  Italian  caution 
they  shrug  their  shoulders  over  the  Council  and  its 
dogma  of  Infallibility — it  is  venturing  too  much  they 
think.  The  monks  have  gone  of  course,  but  a  few 
Capuchins  remain,  and  their  retention  shows  how  im- 
possible the  suppression  of  monasteries  would  have 
been  had  their  occupants  had  the  least  life  in  them. 
When  the  cholera  attacked  San  Remo  all  the  priests 
and  monks  fled  in  a  body  save  the  Capuchins,  and  so 
strong  was  the  gratitude  they  won  that  San  Remo 
nearly  rose  in  revolt  at  the  news  of  their  suppression, 
and  prevailed  on  the  government  to  sanction  their 
exceptional  retention  of  their  old  monastery. 

It  is  curious  too  to  note  how  very  modern  all  real 
life  is  in  Italy.  "Everything  here  dates  from  1848," 
a  gentleman  told  me  the  other  day.  The  older  men  still 
retain  the  habit  of  silence  and  suspicion,  which  was  a 


268  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

necessity  under  the  older  arbitrary  rule  in  Piedmont. 
A  professor  at  Tazzen,  to  whom  our  friend  Congreve 
laughingly  complained  of  his  extreme  caution  and 
reticence,  apologised  by  saying  he  could  not  shake 
off  the  habit  of  a  lifetime.  "  I  was  once  hurried  off 
at  an  hour's  notice  to  prison,  kept  there  six  months, 
and  never  learnt  what  my  crime  was.  It  was  a  word, 
but  I  never  knew  what."  Even  cafes  were  forbidden, 
or  so  restricted  that  they  were  avoided  as  unsafe.  An 
odd  result  of  this  was  that  people  lived  by  preference 
out  of  the  way  in  their  own  estates  in  the  country. 
Now  that  freedom  has  come  there  has  been  a  great 
move  in  upon  the  towns,  and  the  charms  of  cafe  life 
have  robbed  the  country  of  its  residents.  The  change 
is  not  a  healthy  one  for  "Young  Italy,"  which  is 
growing  up  godless,  indolent,  spiritless,  with  little  love 
for  anything  but  lounging  and  billiards. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

SAN  REMO, 
November  26,  1870. 

Did  you  stare  at  Victor  Emanuel's  head,  my  dear 
Dawkins,  and  wonder  who  the  .  .  .  was  writing  to 
you  from  this  side  the  Alps  ?  I  am  in  exile  here,  a 
refugee  from  English  frost  and  fog  and  east  wind. 
I  started  from  home  about  a  month  ago,  and  came 
quickly  across  Germany  and  the  Brenner,  getting  queer 
peeps  at  the  war  by  the  way.  It  was  odd  to  see  the 
weedy  boys  of  the  Garde  Mobile  staring  into  the  shop 
windows  at  Calais,  and  the  new  mud  forts  rising  at 
Lille,  and  quiet  Germans  staring  at  the  new  telegram 
of  the  surrrender  of  Metz  just  stuck  up  at  Aachen, 
and  the  guns  thundering  their  salute  at  Mayentz,  and 
the  wounded  hobbling  over  the  platform  at  Cologne. 
"  Why  do  you  not  illuminate  ? "  I  asked  one  of  the 
townsmen  at  Mayentz.  "  We  are  waiting  for  the 
surrender  of  Paris,"  he  answered  quietly.  I  can  hardly 
picture  the  delight  of  our  passage  from  the  rain  and 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  269 

the  cold  of  Germany  into  the  sunshine  of  Italy.  "  Oh, 
mamma,  this  is  the  real  sun  !  "  a  little  boy  cried  out, 
as  he  jumped  out  on  the  platform  at  Brixen,  and  the 
warm  sun  of  Italy  came  waking  us  all  into  a  new  life 
and  enjoyment.  We  had  it  with  us  at  Verona  and 
Milan  and  Genoa,  at  each  of  which  we  lingered  for  a 
few  days  before  trotting  along  the  Corniche  to  this 
winter  retreat. 

Here  one  is  in  a  quiet  semicircle  of  low  hills, 
sheltered  by  the  Apennines  behind,  and  glowing  with 
warm  sunshine,  and  fine  bright  air.  A  lower  hill  rises 
in  the  midst,  and  from  summit  to  base  the  little  town 
of  San  Remo  tumbles  like  a  cataract  of  stone  into 
the  sea.  All  round  it  are  gardens  of  orange  and  vine 
and  lemon,  and  gardens  still  abloom  with  flowers  (I 
counted  twenty-six  different  kinds  of  plants  in  flower  in 
one  garden  to-day),  and  oranges  waiting  like  golden 
globes  hanging  on  their  trees  for  gathering  at  Christmas- 
tide,  and  palms  rising  close  to  the  shore,  and  all  round 
a  background  of  soft  olive  woods.  There  is  no  sign 
of  winter,  no  stript  trees  or  withered  leaves  ;  even  the 
rain  her6  is  soft  and  warm,  and  one  goes  out  without 
wrap  or  great-coat  on  the  worst  days.  I  have  been 
a  little  imprudent ;  the  air  was  so  exhilarating,  and  my 
physical  strength  returned  so  quickly  that  I  overdid 
myself  at  first ;  but  I  have  learnt  prudence,  and  I  can 
hardly  doubt  from  what  I  already  feel  that  I  shall 
return  a  very  different  man  next  spring. 

What  are  you  doing,  dear  Dax  ?  I  read  the  first  of 
your  "  Cave  digging  "  papers  before  leaving  England, 
and  it  recalled  pleasantly  enough  days  long  gone  by. 
Do  you  remember  those  first  "  diggings,"  and  my  cold, 
and  the  queer  adventures,  spoonings,  and  counter- 
spoonings  at  the  W's.  ?  What  years  have  passed  since 
then,  and  how  much  has  changed  in  both  of  us  !  But  I 
hope  the  friendship  of  those  old  days  remains  as  warm 
as  ever,  old  boy  ! 

Write  to  me  when  you  can.  Letters  are  very 
pleasant  here,  almost  as  pleasant  as  your  visits  were  in 


270  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

London.  It  was  worth  being  ill  to  find  how  true  and 
tender  old  friends  could  be.  Remember  me  very 
kindly  to  your  wife,  and  to  Ward  when  you  see  him. 
When  you  write  tell  me  all  about  yourself \  and  your 
doings  and  beings. 

Good-bye. — Believe  me,  ever  yours,  dear  Dawkins, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  von  Gkhn 

VILLA  CONGREVE,   SAN   REMO, 
November  28,  1870. 

I  have  just  come  in  from  such  a  glorious  sunset, 
dear  Olga,  a  sunset  yet  more  glorious  than  the  sunsets 
of  the  Lagoon,  those  fatal  sunsets  to  me.  The  circle 
of  hills  around  lay  soft  and  dusk  with  olive  woods, 
their  barer  rocks  bathed  in  deep  orange,  and  beyond— 
between  them  and  the  waning  blue  of  the  sky — lay  a 
range  of  further  hills  glowing  with  intense  rose  light. 
And  all  round  the  horizon  a  band  of  pale  orange 
parted  the  sea  from  the  sky.  I  shouted  with  joy  as  I 
hung  over  the  balcony,  watching  till  all  was  gray,  and 
the  cool  night  drove  me  in. 

It  is  so  pleasant  reading  your  letter  over  again — just 
as  if  we  were  chatting  together  in  our  frivolous  way, 
despised  of  Louise  and  the  wiser  sort.  Ah,  well,  dear 
Olga,  the  time  will  come  when  these  wise  ones  will  be 
glad  to  be  frivolous  too.  Let  them  have  their  wisdom 
now,  poor  things  !  To-day  I  have  been  chatting  with 
a  Bishop,  and  am  very  frivolous.  .  .  .  Yesterday  (I 
was  at  Church,  you  sceptical  person  !)  he  treated  us 
to  some  remarks  on  "We  brought  nothing  into  this 
world,  and  certainly  we  shall  carry  nothing  out." 
"Yes,  my  brethren,"  he  said  cheerfully,  "we  brought 
sin  into  this  world,  and  we  may  carry  sin  out ! " 
Don't  you  enjoy  it  ?  I  fed  on  that  sentence  all  the 
quiet  Sunday  evening. 

Your  industry  rebukes  me  dreadfully.  But  what 
can  I  do?  "  My  tub  is  on  the  sea,"  as  Byron  sings, 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  271 

the  tub  in  which  I  packed  books,  papers,  clothes,  every- 
thing. I  am  like  Mariana,  and  sing  "  it  cometh  not" 

O  O 

from  my  moated  grange.  I  sit  there  day  by  day,  hat- 
less,  shirtless,  bootless,  bookless,  and  watch,  "  the 
stately  ships  go  on  to  their  haven  under  the  hill "  of 
San  Remo,  "  but  oh  for  the  sight  of  a  vanished  tub, 
or  the  news  of  a  bark  that  lies  still !  "  "  Tennyson  is 
a  sweet  poet,"  a  girl  said  to  me  to-day,  "  you  can 
always  find  a  verse  of  his  for  every  feeling,  every 
event."  There  are  many  theories  about  the  tub. 
Some  say  it  remains  in  the  British  docks.  Some,  that 
it  has  been  seen  at  Marseilles  serving  as  a  barricade  for 
the  Reds.  One  bold  man  reports  it  to  have  been 
seen  floating  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  with  a  cynical  figure 
peeping  out  of  it,  who  on  being  hailed  replied,  "  I  am 
the  ghost  of  a  Saturday  Reviewer."  Luckily  nothing 
is  of  any  particular  importance  in  this  world.  I  read 
my  Virgil  calmly  by  the  sea  beach,  and  watch  the 
stately  ships  go  on. 

We  are  here  in  the  most  charming  villa  in  all  San 
Remo,  with  the  most  agreeable  of  men,  laughing, 
chatting,  idling  the  long  day  through.  The  rain  seems 
to  have  cleared  away,  but  really  it  is  very  hard  to 
grumble  at  rain  which  never  keeps  you  in  the  whole 
day,  which  calls  for  no  great-coat,  and  leaves  beauty 
and  colour  in  earth  and  sea  and  sky.  However  it  is 
fine  at  last,  and  in  its  stead  is  this  soft  sunshine  and 
fresh  bright  air.  I  have  quite  got  over  my  little 
tumble  back,  the  result  of  a  wild  rush  up  to  a  hill 
village,  and  am  getting  on  marvellously.  Yes,  you 
may  drink  my  Burton  !  Drop  a  tear  in  the  bowl, 
Olga,  as  you  quafF  the  nectar,  a  tear  of  sweet  resolve 
to  write  to  him  who  drank  that  Burton  in  happier 
days  at  once.  And  do  write  chatty  letters.  There  are 
none  I  like  so  much.  Tell  me  all  about  everybody. 
I  am  bothered  by  the  coming  of  the  Taits.  I  know 
my  attractions,  but  still  they  might  have  chosen  some 
other  spot.  Am  I  to  be  driven  to  wear  a  white  tie — 
to  talk  of  Voysey,  and  to  chaperon  Miss  Spooner  ? 


272  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Never,  ye  Gods  !  However,  they  have  put  themselves 
in  Cook's  charge — says  scandal — so  they  may  perhaps 
never  arrive.  Fly,  gloomy  thought  !  Good-bye,  dear 
Olga,  give  my  love  and  kind  memories  to  all  at  the 
Hill  of  Peak,  and  believe  me  ever  your  affectionate 
friend,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
December  2,  1870. 

I  am  afraid  by  your  silence,  dear  Freeman,  that  a 
letter  I  sent  you  from  Verona  never  reached  you. 
Since  then  I  have  run  across  Italy,  seen  Milan  with  its 
Duomo  and  Saint  Ambrogio,  Genoa  with  its  palaces, 
bay  after  bay  of  the  Corniche  glowing  with  a  summer's 
sun  and  the  vegetation  of  spring,  and  last  not  least 
this  delicious  San  Remo  where  we  have  been  settled 
nearly  a  month.  Conceive  a  semicircle  of  low  hills 
covered  with  olive-woods,  with  the  higher  Apennines 
behind  screening  off  every  wind,  and  enclosing  a  little 
space  deep  in  gardens  and  olive  groves,  and  broken  by 
a  hill  which  rises  suddenly  from  the  shore.  From 
summit  to  base  of  this  hill  the  old  town  of  San  Remo 
rushes  down  like  a  cataract  of  stone.  It  is  the  sort  of 
town  one  sees  nowhere  out  of  Italy,  a  huddled  mass  of 
houses  and  vaults  and  arches  hanging  somehow  on  to  a 
hillside  as  steep  as  a  house-roof,  and  pierced  by  narrow 
lanes  propped  everywhere  by  huge  arches  against  earth- 
quakes, and  sometimes  suddenly  disappearing  under 
continuous  vaults  to  dip  out  again  into  the  old  blinding 
sun-glare.  Historically  it  seems  to  have  risen  on  the 
ruins  of  Ventimiglia,  the  old  capital  of  the  Ligurians 
of  this  coast  (the  Intimiglii),  to  have  been  originally  a 
creation  of  the  Archbishops  of  Genoa  as  one  of  their 
manors,  then  to  have  shaken  off  their  lordship,  and 
finally  to  have  settled  like  the  other  towns  of  the  coast 
into  Genoese  dependence.  The  church  of  San  Siro  is 
horribly  muddled  and  buried  under  seventeenth  century 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  273 

restoration,  like  all  the  churches  hereabout  (for  the 
"revival"  of  San  Carlo  Borromeo  was  good  for  piety 
but  terrible  for  art),  but  the  fabric  remains  twelfth- 
century  work,  and  very  good  work.  It  is  interesting 
to  me  as  the  one  relic  left  of  the  old  Communa  :  earth- 
quakes and  "  the  Saracens "  have  swept  away  all  the 
rest.  "  The  Saracens  "  are  very  familiar  friends  here  ; 
every  ruin  is  their  doing  and  every  fort  erected  against 
them.  It  is  a  little  startling  to  find  that  the  raids  of 
Algerian  and  Tunisian  pirates  were  the  scourge  of  this 
coast  as  late  as  1750. 

Talking  of  "Communes"  reminds  me  of  your 
pretty  paper  on  Chester.  But  your  descriptions  of 
towns  puzzle  me  very  much  by  leaving  steadily  out  all 
reference  to  the  town  itself.  Chester  with  its  peculiar 
relations  to  the  Earls  ought  in  any  municipal  sense  to 
be  a  very  interesting  place.  I  am  just  now  in  an  agony 
about  our  dear  French  places.  Imagine  fighting  going 
on  at  Le  Mans  and  divisions  marching  on  Angers  ! 
"  Annexation  "  seems  further  off  than  ever,  I  think  ; 
but  though  I  don't  want  to  see  the  old  rapine-policy 
successful  again,  I  do  want  to  see  Paris  brought  low. 
My  ideal  end  of  the  war  would  be — Paris  surrendered 
after  a  good  bombardment,  Elsass  and  Lorraine  voting 
freely  as  to  their  political  destinies,  and  then  a  slow 
march  of  the  Germans  home  again,  their  bands  playing 
"  Come,  if  you  dare  !  "  But  I  believe  Bismarck  to  be 
the  only  man  who  agrees  with  me  in  this ;  and  he,  poor 
man,  has  no  chance  against  "the  noise  of  professors 
and  the  madness  of  the  people,"  as  David  sang.  Thanks 
very  much  for  your  protest  against  the  revival  of  our 
Crimean  iniquities.  But  what  a  queer  band  of  Pro- 
testants you  are  :  J.  S.  Mill  hand  in  hand  with  Lord 
Shaftesbury  and  you  lying  down  with  James  Anthony 
Froude ! 

For  myself,  I  am  going  on  wonderfully  well ;  my 
English  cold  has  vanished,  and  I  am  twice  as  strong  as 
I  was  when  I  left  home.  We  pity  you  miserable 
Britishers  who  lie  in  fog  darkness  and  the  shadow  of 


274  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

death,  while  we  revel  great-coat-and- wrap-less  in  sun- 
shine, with  oranges  on  the  trees  and  branches  loaded 
with  lemons  and  roses  in  the  gardens  and  violets  in 
the  hedgerows — I  mean  field-walls,  for  hedges  there  be 
none,  and  the  fields  are  strips  of  hillside  propt  with 
terraces.  Still  live  while  you  live,  and  write  me  at  once 
a  full  account  of  yourself  and  your  doings.  How  goes 
on  the  Harem — the  Historic  Harem,  I  mean  ?  Good- 
bye. Remember  me  kindly  to  Mrs.  Freeman  and  your 
family  ;  and  believe  me,  ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Louise  von  Glehn  (Mrs.  Creighton) 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
December  21,  1870. 

I  have  never  given  you  a  peep  at  our  social  life  here, 
dear  Louise.  As  to  women-kind  our  range  is  more 
extensive  than  varied.  Mrs.  A.  is  a  good-natured  vale- 
tudinarian who  talks  you  dead.  Her  daughter  re- 
minds one  of  a  description  of  a  lady,  "  rather  pretty, 
but  her  clothes  seem  to  have  been  made  for  somebody 
else  and  then  worn  on  a  night  journey  !  "  Feminine 
Germans  abound  at  the  hotels  ;  there  is  an  English 
parson's  wife  of  an  aristocratic  turn,  and  the  young  wife 
of  an  American  "  meenistir,"  who  seems  to  do  her 
religion  and  her  shopping  on  the  same  hard -bargain 
principle.  We  have  nine  parsons  beside  the  archbishop, 
and  a  chaplain  who  kept  us  waiting  half  an  hour  for 
the  service  last  Sunday  and  then  told  us  in  his  sermon, 
"  Christians  have  in  every  age  been  known  as  a  waiting 
people."  We  have  a  club  where  young  Italy  does  its 
billiards  and  young  England  its  Times,  and  an  engineer 
and  naval  officer,  each  equally  crippled  in  his  interior, 
play  cribbage  till  dewy  eve.  We  have  three  English 
doctors  and  four  German  ones  driven  by  stress  of  war 
from  Monaco  and  Mentone,  together  with  a  German 
band.  The  German  doctors  cluster  all  day  round  the 
map  of  Paris  and  vow  vengeance  for  the  loss  of  their 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  275 

fees.  Of  the  English  ones  Dr.  A.  has  two  patients, 
his  cook  and  housemaid,  just  to  keep  his  hand  in  ;  Dr. 
B.  not  being  able  to  find  a  legitimate  patient  has  per- 
suaded a  young  lady  in  perfect  health  to  take  arsenic 
for  the  good  of  her  complexion  ;  and  Dr.  C.  has  no 
patient  at  all.  Their  despair  was  converted  into  wild 
revolt  against  heaven  yesterday  by  the  sudden  arrival 
of  five  German  doctors  more.  Luckily  they  were  dis- 
covered to  be  army  doctors,  who  had  been  captured  by 
Chanzy,  and  in  defiance  of  the  Geneva  Convention  sent 
coolly  to  the  south,  and  huddled  by  gendarmes  over 
the  frontier  at  Nice.  Italian  gendarmes  (a  gorgeous 
body  with  cocked  hats  and  toga-like  cloaks  flung  over 
the  left  shoulder)  at  once  seized  on  them  and  hurried 
them  off  to  the  Syndic,  who  not  knowing  what  to  do 
with  them  ordered  them  off  to  prison.  On  this  Con- 
greve  and  others  protested  and  demanded  their  release. 
The  Syndic  said,  "  upon  his  word  that  step  had  never 
occurred  to  him,"  but  complied  ;  and  so  the  poor 
fellows  were  feasted  at  the  cafe,  and  forwarded  next 
morning  to  their  native  land. 

Nothing  is  more  natural  than  the  feeling  you  have  so 
often  expressed  to  me  of  your  own  deficiencies.  One  no 
sooner  grasps  the  real  bigness  of  the  world's  work  than 
one's  own  effort  seems  puny  and  contemptible.  Then, 
again,  one  comes  across  minds  and  tempers  so  infinitely 
grander  and  stronger  than  one's  own  that  one  shrinks 
with  a  false  humility  from  any  seeming  rivalry  with 
them  in  noble  working.  And  then  again  in  the  very 
effort  to  do  anything,  however  small,  one  is  hampered 
by  circumstances  at  every  step  till  we  are  inclined  to 
throw  up  the  fight  in  despair.  It  is  just  the  souls  that 
long  to  do  the  noblest  work  that  feel  most  their  own 
immeasurable  inferiority  to  it.  No  people  tumble  about 
so  despairingly  in  the  Slough  of  Despond.  Moses  felt 
himself  a  man  of  stammering  lips  ;  Elijah  sank  under 
the  juniper  ;  Burns  went  silently,  moodily,  about  his 
farmwork,  longing  for  the  song  that  never  came.  But 


276  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

it  came  at  last.  The  thing  is,  I  think,  to  think  less  of 
ourselves  and  what  we  are  to  our  work,  and  more  of 
our  work  and  what  it  is  to  us.  The  world  moves 
along,  not  merely  by  the  gigantic  shoves  of  its  hero- 
workers,  but  by  the  aggregate  tiny  pushes  of  every 
honest  worker  whatever.  All  may  give  some  tiny  push 
or  other  and  feel  that  they  are  doing  something  for 
mankind.  "  Circumstances "  spur  as  much  as  they 
hinder  us ;  it  is  in  the  struggle  day  by  day  with  them 
that  we  gain  muscle  for  the  real  life  fight ;  and  the 
sense  of  the  superiority  of  others  is  a  joy  to  those  who 
really  work,  not  for  themselves,  but  for  the  good  of 
man.  What  they  cannot  do  they  rejoice  that  others 
can.  Respice  finem,  the  old  monks  used  to  say  in  their 
meditations  on  life — "  consider  the  end."  And  so  it 
must  be.  To  work  well  we  must  look  to  the  end  ; 
not  death,  but  the  good  of  mankind  ;  not  self-improve- 
ment in  itself,  but  simply  as  a  means  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  race.  Don't  think  this  too  big  an  end  to 
look  to — one  must  look  greatly  forward  to  the  great. 
In  the  light  of  it,  one  sees  how  the  very  patience  of  a 
thwarted  day  may  be  one's  "  work  "  to  the  end.  .  .  . 
—Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
January  9,  1871. 

I  can't  delay  an  hour  in  replying  to  a  letter  so  full 
of  friendship  and  real  confidence  as  yours,  dear  Olga. 
...  It  is  the  lot  of  man  and  woman  here  and  there  to 
face  life  alone,  and  if  it  be  one's  lot  I  suppose  one  must 
bear  it  bravely  and  silently.  But  it  is  a  lot  which  no 
one  need  woo  for  themselves.  A  single  life  need  not 
be  a  selfish  life,  but  it  must  be  an  incomplete  one.  The 
"  stronger  women  "  of  the  future  will  no  doubt  get  rid 
of  a  vast  deal  of  empty  sentiment  which  English  girls 
out  of  sheer  idleness  call  love  ;  the  men  playing  at 
affections  which  they  go  in  for,  "  'cos  they've  nothin' 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  277 

else  to  do ! "  I  have  always  protested  (lightly  or 
gravely)  against  the  degradation  of  love  in  the  hands 
of  the  ordinary  English  girl — her  perpetual  fingering 
it  and  playing  at  it,  as  I  have  always  protested  against 
her  like  degradation  of  music  or  art.  But  this  was 
not  because  I  disbelieved  in  love,  but  because  I  believed 
in  it  so  intensely.  The  self -education  of  "stronger 
women,"  if  it  frees  them  from  the  necessity  of  amus- 
ing themselves  with  perpetual  love-making,  will  only 
strengthen  them  for  a  greater  and  a  nobler  love.  And 
perhaps  they  will  find  that  this  greatness  and  nobleness 
consists  in  what  you  laugh  at  as  "the  ignominious 
thing  of  marrying  for  a  home  and  for  the  love  of  a 
husband."  After  all  the  "  wooing  and  winning,"  the 
whispers  and  love-letters,  the  sweet  quarrels  and  sweeter 
reconciliations,  are  a  poor  childish  thing  beside  the  love 
of  wedded  life — the  trust,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  quiet 
daily  growth  of  affection,  the  strange,  sweet  sense  of  a 
double  life,  of  a  life  at  last  more  than  double,  multiplied 
a  thousandfold  by  the  new  child -faces,  enlarged  and 
enriched  with  every  new  responsibility  or  peril.  I  was 
looking  out  over  the  sea  to-day  with  your  letter  in  my 
hand  thinking  how — even  if  I  live  on  (and  I  am  not  so 
well  again) — all  this  is  lost  to  me. 

We  are  gayer  than  we  were.  The  German  band 
which  usually  spends  the  winter  enticing  folk  to  rouge 
et  noir  at  Monaco  has  been  driven  out  by  the  French 
authorities,  and  so  has  put  in  here.  It  is  a  capital 
band,  full  of  fire  and  precision,  with  a  really  good 
conductor  ;  and  the  two  concerts  they  have  given  had 
a  real  Crystal  Palace  smack  about  them.  Verdi  of 
course  haunts  every  Italian  concert-room  ;  in  fact 
they  are  only  just  beginning  to  appreciate  Beethoven 
at  Milan !  Still  the  programmes  make  a  good  fight 
for  the  true  faith.  Moreover  I  am  a  wee  bit  happy 
at  the  prospect  of  Humphry  Ward's  arrival  on  his  way 
home  from  Capri.  "You  women,"  who  are  so  con- 
temptuous of  "us  men,"  know  little  of  the  ardour  and 


278  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

fire  of  men's  friendship.  If  he  don't  loiter  too  long  in 
Rome,  I  have  a  sort  of  design  to  walk  along  the  coast 
to  Nizza  with  him,  doing  very  short  spells  every  day, 
and  carrying  our  baggage  on  a  donkey  behind  us.  The 
bit  of  ground  between  Mentone  and  Nizza  which 
everybody  scuttles  over  by  train  is  the  prettiest  along 
the  whole  coast.  We  are  already  planning  (it  may  be 
a  mere  vision)  a  month's  stay  at  Florence  in  the  spring 
before  our  return  home.  Here  one  gets  Italian  sea 
and  sky,  Italian  colour  and  warmth  and  beauty  ;  but 
after  all  one  longs  to  be  more  among  the  Italy  that  has 
told  upon  the  world  of  men,  of  art,  of  letters,  the  Italy 
of  Dante,  of  Rafraelle,  of  Galileo.  And  Florence  sums 
up  in  a  strange  way  this  Italy,  as  Rome  sums  it  up  in 
the  past.  .  .  . — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Mrs.  Churchill  Eabington  (Mrs.  W.  H.  Wright) 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
January  9,  1871. 

I  have  just  begun  Italian,  dear  M.,  that  I  may  read 
Dante,  as  I  have  read  Virgil  and  Spenser  since  my 
coming  here.  In  his  English  translation  he  was  the 
first  great  poet  I  really  loved.  Years  before  I  cared 
for  even  Shakespeare  or  had  read  a  line  of  Tennyson, 
the  cheap  plaster-bust  of  the  great  Florentine  stood  in 
the  "  study "  of  my  boyish  schooldays.  Partly,  no 
doubt,  this  was  owing  to  the  quality  which  distinguishes 
him  from  all  other  poets  —  his  dealing  throughout,  I 
mean,  with  real  men  and  women.  Carlyle  talks  non- 
sense about  poetry  being  useless  because  it  is  "  untrue." 
The  passions,  the  emotions,  the  woes  and  sorrows  of 
the  "  Idylls  "  or  the  "  In  Memoriam,"  are  as  "  true  "  as 
those  of  the  most  prosaic  history  in  the  world.  But 
no  doubt  the  fictitious  characters  in  which  they  are 
expressed  tell  insensibly  on  the  amount  of  credence,  or 
perhaps  pleasure,  we  attach  to  them.  The  love  of 
Francesca,  the  death  -  despair  of  Ugolino  derive,  it  is 
certain,  somewhat  of  their  force  from  the  fact  that 


in  THE  «  SHORT  HISTORY  '  279 

Ugolino  and  Francesca  actually  loved  and  died.  Every 
character  is  that  of  an  actually  living  man.  We  jostle 
among  a  crowd  of  real  people  and  this  gives  a  peculiar 
force  and  life-likeness  to  the  work. 

Jan.  1 1 . — I  saw  a  weird,  Dantesque  sight  to-day  that 
only  Italy  I  think  could  give.  The  day  was  too  blue, 
too  perfect,  to  let  one  rest  at  San  Remo  ;  so  off  we  went 
into  the  hills  to  a  queer  sort  of  out-of-the-way  nook 
called  Ceriana.  Beneath  us  as  we  zigzagged  up  the  hill- 
side lay  the  blue  curve  of  the  bay — so  intensely  blue,  and 
the  "  ashy  "  heap  of  the  town  wedged  among  its  olives. 
Then  we  rounded  a  headland  and  San  Remo  was  lost, 
and  through  the  lanes  of  Poggio  (mere  holes  with  arches 
overhead,  stenches,  and  no  daylight)  we  rattled  out 
again  into  a  great  valley  striking  up  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  mountains,  with  huge  bare  sides  fringed  at 
the  base  with  olives,  and  dotted  thinly  higher  up  with 
cypresses  and  firs.  Our  carriage  delayed  us  and  we 
crept  slowly  up  the  sides  of  the  valley,  but  without 
much  regret  for  lost  time  ;  for  in  the  very  centre  of  it 
rose  suddenly  a  great  bluff  of  rock  with  a  town  on  it, 
a  white  town  all  bright  against  the  blue  sky  on  this 
mass  of  yellowish  gray  rock,  soft  sandstone,  and  scored 
deep  with  gorges  and  ravines  so  that  its  buttresses 
spread  out  like  huge  claws  over  the  bed  of  the  valley. 
I  can  give  no  other  comparison  ;  it  was  exactly  like 
some  monster  beast  of  the  olden  world  rising  up  from 
the  river-bed  and  lifting  the  city  up  like  a  feather- 
weight on  its  back.  And  remember,  city  and  rock 
were  absolutely  glowing  with  light  so  that  (miles  off 
as  they  were)  it  seemed  as  if  one  could  have  stretched 
out  one's  hand  over  the  valley  and  touched  every  church 
and  claw.  We  went  on  getting  higher  and  higher  along 
the  hillside  thick  with  myrtle  and  arbutus,  till  we  felt 
the  snow  beneath  our  feet  (such  an  odd  sensation  here), 
and  the  rocks  grew  white  and  bare  ;  and  rounding  a 
corner  we  saw  Ceriana  huddled  against  a  hill-front  in 
the  great  cul-de-sac  of  the  gorge. 


280  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Jan.  12. — The  great  charm  of  Ceriana  lay  in  a  real 
old  church,  with  an  exquisite  campanile  etched  out 
against  the  snow  of  the  hillside  beyond,  and  untouched 
by  "  restoration."  All  the  churches  about  here  were 
converted  into  temples  of  stucco  without  and  ochre 
within  some  200  years  ago,  in  the  fervour  of  the 
"  Catholic  revival "  under  Carlo  Borromeo.  But  I 
can't  talk  about  churches  just  when  the  diligence  has 
brought  me  Humphry  Ward. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

SAN  REMO, 
January  29^  1871. 

[Mr.  Voysey  was  deprived  of  his  living  by  a 
sentence  of  the  Privy  Council,  February  u,  1871.] 

I  suppose  that  your  hard  weather  is  over  by  this 
time,  dear  Dawkins,  though  you  can  hardly  have 
attained  to  our  spring  weather  here.  January  has  been 
a  fine  month  on  the  whole,  but  varied  with  a  certain 
number  of  windy  and  rainy  days.  But  this  last  fort- 
night the  real  spring  weather  of  the  Corniche  has  set  in, 
— a  sun  hot  and  bright  as  English  summer  suns,  and  a 
great  rush  of  wild  flowers  out  along  the  hills.  We  have 
beds  of  narcissus  and  clusters  of  hyacinths  just  above 
our  house  here,  and  as  one  goes  along  the  paths  the 
odour  of  the  violets  strikes  even  upon  my  insensible 
nose.  The  difficulty  of  such  weather  is  that  it  tempts 
me  to  do  too  much.  Yesterday  for  instance  I  took 
four  hours  up  the  hill  at  a  stretch.  It  was  wonderful 
weather  and  the  most  delightful  scenery  in  the  world,— 
from  one  point,  a  promontory  crowned  with  a  white 
chapel  of  the  Madonna,  one  looked  down  on  two  great 
bays  of  blue  sea,  just  heaving  with  a  summer  swell  and 
shimmering  with  colour, — then  turning  inland  the  eye 
struck  up  a  wild  valley  with  white  little  towns  perched 
on  the  hillside  to  the  distant  mountains  crowned  with 
pure  bright  snow.  But  to-day  I  am  paying  for  the  de- 
light and  the  over-exertion.  The  truth  is,  my  physical 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  281 

strength  has  shot  on  wonderfully  but  my  lung  lags  be- 
hind. It  will  be  a  weary  business  ;  but  it  is  wonderful 
that  I  have  got  round  so  well  as  I  have,  and  I  mustn't 

O 

grumble.  Clark  told  me  before  1  left  England  that  I  was 
going  on  so  well  now  that  I  might  as  well  know  that 
when  he  first  examined  me  more  than  a  year  ago,  he 
didn't  expect  to  pull  me  through  at  all.  I  am  cheerful 
about  myself,  but  I  see  how  very  cautious  I  shall  have 
to  be  and  that  I  must  expect  constant  relapses.  More- 
over it  will  be  necessary,  I  fancy,  for  me  to  spend  my 
winters  out  of  England  for  some  time  yet.  This  is  de- 
lightful enough,  but  destructive  to  "  preferment "  and 
that  sort  of  thing,  about  which  Tait  is  most  kind  and 
gracious.  But  till  I  have  seen  the  Voysey  judgment 
(of  which  I  have  been  allowed  to  know  only  this  that  it 
is  against  him)  I  don't  know  whether  it  would  be  even 
possible  for  me  to  take  preferment  at  all. 

The  Archbishop  and  his  folk  have  gone  on  to  Men- 
tone,  as  this  place  was  a  little  too  uphill  for  him,  and 
without  level  paths.  He  is  wonderfully  better  than  in 
England,  and  illness  seems  to  have  brought  out  all  the 
gentleness  and  kindness  of  his  nature.  Just  before  I 
left  home  he  sent  me,  with  the  most  charming  letter  in 
the  world,  a  ,£50  note, — my  best  thanks,  he  said,  would 
be  to  start  at  once.  Here  he  and  I  had  pleasant  genial 
chats,  which  will  always  be  a  pleasant  memory  to  me. 
Lady  W.  too  who  was  with  him  was  good  fun, — a 
cheery  old  lady  who  was  always  pressing  me  to  get 

married.  Do  you  know  the  S s  ? — the  eldest  son, 

the  member  for  H.,  has  been  some  weeks  with  his 
mother.  He  is  a  really  good  fellow,  and  strong  in 
chemistry,  etc.,  with  just  a  little  too  much  of  "the 
Lobby "  in  him  as  in  most  young  M.P.s.  But  of 
course  the  great  thing  in  our  winter-retreat  is  to  avoid 
rather  than  court  society,  the  mob  of  "  poitrinaires  "  is 
simply  boring  and  depressing,  and  our  own  little  circle 
is  quite  enough  for  social  enjoyment. 

I  have  just  resumed  work  with  the  New  Year  and 
have  sent  in  half-a-dozen  articles  to  Harwood.  I  never 


282  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

felt  in  better  intellectual  trim,  but  here  again  I  am 
obliged  to  be  cautious,  a  day  of  over-writing  knocks 
me  up  just  as  much  as  a  day  of  over-walking.  How 
one  longs  for  the  strength  of  old  Freeman  !  You  have 
been  stopping  with  him, — do  write  and  tell  me  how  he 
is.  Oddly  enough,  after  being  my  most  constant 
correspondent  he  has  wholly  deserted  me  since  I  came 
out  here,  only  sending  me  a  single  letter  the  whole 
time.  But  even  he  seems  to  have  found  this  winter  too 
much  for  him. 

I  shall  stay  in  Italy  till  the  end  of  May  ;  but  my 
present  notion  is  to  leave  San  Remo  about  the  middle  of 
April,  to  loiter  at  Mentone,  Monaco,  Nice,  and  Cannes, 
and  to  spend  May  in  Florence.  It  seems  like  a  dream 
of  delight  being  in  this  lovely  Italy,  and  yet  more  being 
face  to  face  with  the  city  on  the  Arno, — the  city  one 
has  read  of  and  known  of,  but  hardly  hoped  to  see.  If 
as  I  hope  I  see  it  this  spring  and  Rome  next  autumn,  I 
shall  be  a  lucky  fellow.  How  I  wish  I  could  see  your 
dear  old  face  again,  Dax,  and  chat  about  the  old  days 
for  an  hour  !  Our  dreams  are  turning  out  realities,  only 
the  realities  are  stranger  than  our  dreams.  What  a 
world  of  time  that  ten  years  seems  to  be  since  we  paced 
the  Quad  in  the  moonlight,  and  talked  wildly  of  the 
coming  days ! 

Good-bye.  Give  my  kindest  regards  to  Mrs. 
Dawkins  and  your  mother.  Write  soon, — and  believe 
me  ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
February  6,  1871. 

It  was  delightful  to  get  your  long  letter,  dear  Free- 
man, and  not  less  delightful  to  find  that  you,  the  most 
accurate  of  post-knowing  people,  put  too  wee  a  stamp 
on  it.  That  franc  shall  be  hurled  at  you  whenever  you 
taunt  me  with  not  knowing  the  exact  charge  for  a  letter 
to  Masulipatam.  Of  course  I  bow  and  even  prostrate 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  283 

myself  before  your  "  work," — when  do  you  do  it? — do 
you  ever  eat  or  sleep  or  chat  ? — write  jolly  letters  I 
know  you  do,  though  rather  few  of  them  to  some  poor 
folk  !  I  hope  Volume  IV.  will  greet  me  on  my  return 
at  the  end  of  May.  Stubbs's  book  is  on  the  wing  hither, 
—he  sent  me  his  blessing  t'other  day  by  Humphry 
Ward,  but  he  will  curse  me  when  he  reads  the  two 
papers  on  "  Oxford  and  its  Early  History,"  which  I  am 
sending  to  Macmillan,  whereof  the  thesis  is  twofold, 
(i)  that  the  University  killed  the  city,  and  (2)  that 
the  Church  pretty  well  killed  the  University.  I  wrote 
them  to  pay  my  lodgings  and  washing  bill,  but  I  haven't 
scamped  them,  and  I  shall  be  curious  to  know  what 
you  think  of  them. 

I  liked  much  your  Pall  Mall  letter  anent  the  Dutch- 
Welch  war.  As  you  say,  I  don't  see  the  Republic. 
Gambetta  is  simply  Imperialism  over  again  in  spite  of 
Fred.  Harrison's  ravings.  I  can't  tell  you  what  a  dis- 
appointment the  crash  of  Republicanism  in  France  has 
been  to  me  ;  impossible  as  it  is  for  us  to  sympathise 
with  or  be  influenced  by  her,  her  influence  over  Spain 
and  Italy  is  immense,  and  here  especially  I  feel  every 
day  what  an  immense  impulse  towards  good  Italy  might 
receive  from  a  really  liberal  France.  In  a  middle  which 
I  have  been  sending  to  Harwood  I  have  pointed  out  the 
enormous  amount  of  work  Italy  has  really  done  and  the 
amazingly  short  space  of  time  she  has  done  it  in. 
Much  of  it  is  of  course  done  badly,  some  altogether 
scamped,  but  the  social  and  religious  difficulties  are  too 
enormous  to  be  realised,  save  by  living  in  Italy  itself. 
All  the  women  here,  for  instance,  believe  the  drought 
and  bad  crops  of  the  past  seven  years  to  be  owing  to 
the  "persecution  of  the  Pope."  A  sensible  man  owns 
to  me  that  he  looks  on  the  inundation  of  Rome  as 
Heaven's  sign  against  its  annexation  to  Italy.  To  have 
made  Italy,  in  spite  of  all  this,  to  have  created  an  army 
and  a  navy,  organised  a  system  of  popular  education  far 
superior  to  our  own,  carried  out  a  great  church  reform, 


284  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

covered  the  country  with  railroads,  etc.,  etc.,  in  twenty 
years  is  (considering  our  rate  of  progress)  something  to 
be  really  proud  of.  The  curse  of  Italy  is  its  adminis- 
trative centralisation,  and  that  is  the  gift  of  France.  If 
a  really  free  France  were  to  decentralise,  as  to  be  really 
free  she  must,  it  would  tell  enormously  here.  But  what 
hope  is  there  of  a  free  France  ? 

(end  missing.) 
To  Miss  L.  von  Glehn  (Mrs.  Creighton] 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
February  1 1,  1871. 

I  can't  tell  you  with  what  delight  I  read  all  about 
your  visit  to  King's  Square.  Is  it  not  a  dismal  place 
and  a  dismal  house  ?  And  yet  it  is  my  Mecca.  There 
is  a  room  in  that  house  which  is  more  to  me  than  any 
Holy  Sepulchre — the  room  where  I  last  saw  and  said 
"Good-bye"  to  the  greatest  and  best  person  I  have 
ever  met,  or  shall  ever  meet,  in  this  world.  I  said 
good-bye  not  doubting  we  should  meet  again,  for  she 
seemed  getting  better,  and  indeed  I  could  not  think  it 
possible  for  her  to  die.  And  then  two  days  after  in  a 
street  at  Oxford  I  got  the  telegram  that  she  was  dead.  I 
remember  that  day  so  well ;  it  was  Commemoration  Day, 
and  the  degree  of  D.C.L.  was  given  to  Lord  Palmerston, 
and  the  Theatre  was  full  of  people  shouting  and  cheer- 
ing ;  and  I  came  out  of  it  all,  and  read  that.  It  is  all 
years  ago,  and  yet  infinitely  more  present  to  me  than 
any  present  thing.  I  went  before  I  left  England  to  see 
her  grave  at  Tooting.  They  are  building  fast  all  round, 
so  that  even  in  death  she  will  lie  in  that  hideous  wilder- 
ness of  brick  and  mortar  that  killed  her  ;  for  she  longed 
for  air  and  sunlight  and  the  songs  of  birds.  Ah,  when 
I  think  of  that  freshness,  that  nobleness,  wrought  out 
in  a  life  so  hampered  and  bound  down  to  the  common- 
place, I  turn  angrily  from  all  my  moans,  and  other 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  285 

people's  moans  at  their  life  rendering  real  greatness  im- 
possible. I  see  people  straining  after  power,  longing 
to  be  able  to  influence  and  what  not.  I  long  to  tell 
them,  "  There  has  been  in  my  whole  life  among  the 
thousands  I  have  met  one  person,  and  one  only,  who 
has  influenced  me,  before  whom  my  whole  soul  bent  in 
reverence  and  adoring  love.  And  she  was  the  quiet 
wife  of  an  East-End  parson,  in  a  dingy  London  square, 
who  would  have  laughed  at  the  thought  of  '  influencing ' 
anybody." 

[In  a  following  passage,  too  intimate  for  publication, 
Green  mentions  a  curious  incident.  One  of  Mr.  Ward's 
daughters  was  a  child  of  3  or  4  years  old  when  he  went 
to  her  father's  house  meaning  to  refuse  the  curacy.  The 
child  "  played  with  me  and  tied  my  leg  to  the  table 
and  said,  '  Shan't  go,'  and  half  from  sheer  love  to  the 
child,  and  half  from  that  strange  feeling  of  fatalism 
which  lies  at  the  root  of  half  my  life,  I  said,  '  I  will 
stay.'  How  different  my  life  might  have  been  but  for 
little  M. !  "]  J.  R.  G. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
February  19,  1871. 

I  have  finished  a  sensational  novel,  I  have  seen  a 
shoal  of  porpoises,  and  a  double  inspiration  drives  me 
to  write  to  you,  dear  Olga.  Which  of  the  "  me's  "  is 
writing  now,  the  one  you  like  or  the  one  you  hate,  I 
can't  say.  Your  letter  made  me  doubt  my  own  identity, 
and  run  ofF  wildly  to  the  Athanasian  Creed  to  see  if  I 
couldn't  do  something  to  prevent  this  confounding  the 
persons  and  dividing  the  substance.  But  nothing  came 
of  it.  I  begin  to  half  believe  in  your  theory  of  me — at 
any  rate  it  explains  a  good  deal.  When  I  am  enthusiastic 
about  something  or  somebody  at  dinner  and  bored  by 
bedtime,  or  solemnly  vow  and  promise  on  Monday  and 
forget  all  about  it  on  Tuesday,  it  is  likely  enough — 


286  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

now  you  suggest  it — that  it  is  the  one  "  I  "  that  deals 
in  enthusiasm  and  promises,  and  the  other  that  is  bored 
and  forgets.  You  too  have  an  "  I "  that  forgets. 
Didn't  you  promise  and  vow  as  soon  as  your  "  hand- 
some pay  "  arrove  from  New  Caledonia  to  come  and 
see  me  at  San  Remo,  and  carry  my  baggage  for  me 
instead  of  a  donkey  ?  Olga,  you  came  not !  I  dis- 
missed that  donkey.  I  waited.  Day  after  day,  from 
morn  to  dewy  eve,  my  eyes  rested  on  that  white  road 
across  the  headland.  But  in  vain !  At  last  I  have 
resumed  my  donkey.  Her  name  is  not  exactly  Norval, 
but  Roma.  It  is  very  like  your  own,  which  pains  me. 
Never  was  such  a  moke !  She  rushes  at  the  steepest 
hillside  and  swims  up  it  with  an  easy  grace.  She  picks 
her  way  daintily  down  the  stoniest  ravines.  She  has  a 
divine  pitifulness  over  the  weaknesses  of  humanity,  and 
looked  down  on  me  with  almost  parental  affection  as  I 
lay  at  her  feet,  grovelling  in  the  dust,  with  one  foot  in 
the  stirrup.  Human  thought  and  donkey-jumps  don't 
harmonise,  dear  Olga,  and  I  think  now  and  then  and 
now  and  then  Roma  jumps.  Then  from  the  dust  I 
look  up  at  her  with  one  foot  still  in  the  stirrup,  and 
that  gentle  eye  of  celestial  pitifulness  looks  down  on 
me.  Ah,  had  I  met  with  a  sympathy  like  this  earlier 
in  life !  But  we  are  all  "  blighted  bein's "  except 
Louise.  What  is  that  gay  and  festive  young  person 
doing  at  Oxford  ?  I  hear  of  her  flirting  with  susceptible 
Dons,  sitting  at  the  feet  of  Ruskin,  and  initiating  the 
University  into  the  mysteries  of  High  Art !  One 
young  tutor  I  know  has  abandoned  his  logic  in 
despair,  and  moons  about  the  Christ  Church  walls 
ejaculating,  "  Louise,  wheeze,  wheeze,"  in  as  poetic  a 
way  as  his  influenza  will  allow  him.  What  privileges 
young  Oxford  has  nowadays !  In  my  day  no  young 
maidens  descended  on  our  earthly  sphere. 

But  I  am  writing  nonsense.  The  fact  is,  it  is  too 
sunny  to  write  sense.  Day  after  day  there  is  the  same 
blue  sky,  without  a  cloud,  the  same  bright  warm  sun- 
shine, the  same  depth  of  colour  over  the  sea,  the  very 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  287 

ground  carpeted  with  violets  and  anemones.  And  all 
this  sunshine  is  healthy  as  well  as  beautiful,  and  my 
chest  is  freer  than  it  has  ever  been,  and  if  I  can  only 
keep  quiet  and  be  sensible  I  may  see  a  little  more  ot 
life  yet.  .  .  . 

Good-bye,  dear  Olga  ;  write  at  once,  for  it  is  a 
while  since  I  had  any  news  from  the  Hill  of  Peak. 
All  the  Saints  salute  thee.  Salute  Mimi  and  Louise  and 
the  household  generally. — Good-bye.  J.  R.  G. 


To  Miss  L.  von  Glehn  {Mrs.  Creighton) 

PENSION  GEVERAN,  CANNES, 
March  6,  1871. 

[The  struggle  with  the  Commune  began  on   March 
18,  1871.] 

I  have  been  wondering  at  your  long  silence,  dear 
Louise,  and  now  I  am  only  in  wonder  how  you  can 
have  broken  it.  If  I  am  ever  engaged,  my  corre- 
spondents will  have  to  give  up  all  hopes  of  letters. 
I  shall  be  wrapped  in  "  dreamful  ease  "  like  the  gods 
in  Tithonus  [the  "  Lotos  Eaters  "],  and  let  the  world 
go  its  way.  Still  I  am  delighted  that  you  have  written 
and  that  the  news  of  your  engagement  should  have 
reached  me  from  yourself,  for  happy  as  I  am  about  it — 
and  indeed  I  am  on  all  grounds  most  happy — there  is 
always  a  shadow  of  dread  about  a  friend's  marriage, 
and  I  have  too  few  real  friends  to  care  to  lose  one. 
But  such  a  frank,  warm-hearted  note  as  yours  dispels  all 
dread.  I  feel  that  our  friendship  will  remain  just  as 
warm  and  true  as  ever,  although  you  will  have  some 
one  else  now  to  treat  you  to  "  wise  conversation." 
Indeed,  indeed,  Louise,  I  rejoice  in  this  happiness  of 
yours.  As  you  say,  I  have  just  seen  Mr.  Creighton, 
but  he  is  a  man  one  hears  a  good  deal  of  and  all  one 
hears  tends  the  same  way.  I  have  said  hard  things  of 
"Young  Oxford,"  and  perhaps  there  are  hard  things 
to  say ;  but  no  one  can  deny  that  there  is  a  great 


288  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

deal  of  real  nobleness  and  refinement  of  life  about  it. 
I  have  always  heard  Mr.  Creighton  spoken  of  as  the 
representative  of  its  best  side.  He  must  be  a  man  of 
singular  power — his  influence  over  Merton  and  at 
Oxford  generally  shows  that  —  and  for  all  moral 
qualities  I  am  content  with  your  own  assurance.  I 
know  you  could  not  love  a  man  who  was  not  noble  in 
heart  and  soul.  .  .  .  As  to  waiting  for  marriage, 
marry  poor ;  have  the  pluck  and  faith  in  one  another 
that  people  nowadays  seem  to  me  to  want.  I  will 
excuse  you  the  fees  if  I  may  marry  you,  but  I  know 
you  will  prefer  the  shiny  curate  and  so  my  last  clerical 
hope  is  gone ! 

I  hope  you  are  "  Red  "  in  your  French  sympathies 
and  don't  follow  the  Time s  and  the  English  papers  in 
their  rabid  attacks  on  Paris.  Things  have  gone  a 
long  way  beyond  its  original  demands,  but  it  is  well 
to  remember  that  these  were  simply  for  the  self-govern- 
ment which  every  English  town  has.  But  Paris  is 
more  than  an  ordinary  town — it  is  the  seat  of  Govern- 
ment— and  it  has  seen  liberty  overthrown  again  and 
again  by  administrative  coups  d'etat  in  its  streets.  It 
sees  in  its  own  National  Guard,  officered  and  com- 
manded by  itself,  an  effective  safeguard  against  coups 
d'etat,  and  it  sees  no  other.  Had  these  demands 
been  frankly  granted  instead  of  being  played  with  and 
evaded  all  would  have  been  well.  As  it  is  the  city  is 
driven  to  far  larger  demands.  It  seems  unreasonable — 
it  is  perhaps — to  demand  urban  independence.  But 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  great  French  cities  have 
been  trodden  under  foot  by  the  vast  uneducated  rural 
masses.  Ought  there  not  to  be  some  security  against 
this?  At  any  rate,  is  not  this  Paris  a  wonderful 
spectacle  of  a  government  of  artizans,  governing  ably, 
preserving  order,  and  with  property  and  life  as  safe  as 
in  Regent  Street?  And  yet  we  howl  day  after  day 
"anarchy  and  pillage"  at  it.  It  is  time  to  say  good- 
bye, dear  Louise,  and  yet  I  can't  say  it  without  again 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  289 

telling  you  what  joy  this  news  of  your  happiness  has 
given  me.  God  bless  you,  and  make  you  still  happier 
in  the  days  to  come. 


To  Miss  von  Glehn 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
March  10,  1871. 

[Edward  Lear  (1812-1888),  the  artist  and  author 
of  the  Book  of  Nonsense,  was  living  at  San  Remo  at  this 
time.] 

Surely,  dear  Olga,  you  are  the  most  abusive  as  you 
are  the  most  entertaining  of  correspondents.  You  tell 
me  that  my  letter  "  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a 
porpoise,"  while  yours  always  display  that  of  "  a 
sensational  novel."  Certainly  the  "  midnight  flitting  " 
at  the  close  of  your  last  had  a  sensational  turn  about 
it  ;  Mr.  Whistler  should  have  painted  that  bread-and 
butter  spreading  in  the  schoolroom  with  his  usual 
"effects"  in  whites  and  greys.  But  I  was  most 
amused  at  the  little  Oxford  Comedy,  of  which  I  got 
the  other  and  more  lachrymose  side  from  H.  W.  the 
very  day  I  received  your  news.  Certainly  L.  made  a 
wonderful  splash,  though  she  wouldn't  think  so  much 
of  Oxford  splashes  after  a  little  experience  of  the 
place.  The  blase  young  Epicureans  with  red  beards 
and  gold  eye-glasses  are  always  looking  out  like  the 
Athenians  for  "  some  new  thing "  to  get  "  a  rise  out 
of  life  with."  But  the  new  thing  never  lasts  a  term  ; 
and  if  L.  were  to  try  "  the  year  at  Oxford "  they 
propose,  she  would  see  a  good  many  successors  in  the 
lion  department.  Just  now  they  prize  her  for  a  quality 
they  have  taken  up  lately  as  the  sum  and  crown  of 
things,  her  "  perfect  repose."  Shall  we  two  go  down 
to  the  city  of  the  Isis,  and  show  them  what  "  perfect 
repose"  can  be?  No,  we  should  laugh  too  much,  and 
the  young  philosophers  with  eye-glasses  only  smile. 
They  are  exquisitely  witty,  and  smile.  Louise  never 


290  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

liked  our  incessant  joking,  our  utter  want  of  serious- 
ness, our  frivolous  aversion  to  earnest  discussion.  It 
is  when  I  see  the  young  generation,  Olga,  that  I  thank 
the  Gods  I  am  old.  The  world  seems  to  me  to  be 
going  in  for  aesthetic  boredom,  and  to  be  about  to 
expire  in  an  elegant  yawn.  The  one  comfort  is  that 
all  the  people  one  really  believes  in  and  cares  about 
are  as  gay  and  "frivolous"  as  we  are.  Contrast  the 
buoyant  life  of  Mendelssohn's  letters  with  the  "  perfect 
repose"  of  these  Oxford  philosophers  ! 

Of  course  your  mother  will  whistle  Miss  L.'s  plans 
of  "  a  year  at  Oxford "  down  the  wind.  No  place 
takes  the  bloom  off  a  girl  so  much.  Nowhere  is  she  so 
"  played  with,"  so  amused,  petted,  and  flung  by.  As 
to  "  studying  "  there  are  a  thousandfold  better  lectures 
to  be  got  in  London  than  in  Oxford,  and  the  society 
of  Peak  Hill  is  of  a  healthier  intellectual  type, 
because  of  a  far  broader  intellectual  type,  than  that 
of  the  D.s.  Deutsch  is  a  greater  scholar,  Haweis  a 
greater  wit,  and  George  Grove  a  more  accomplished 
person  that  any  three  men  she  could  meet  at  Oxford, 
barring  Max  Muller  and  one  or  two  she  isn't  likely  to 
have  much  to  do  with.  As  for  the  C.s  and  fish  of  that 
kind,  they  are  big  fish  in  a  little  pond,  but  one  has 
seen  plenty  of  them  shrink  (illegible}  when  they  have 
been  plunged  into  the  London  "  big  water."  .  .  . 

I  have  just  been  seeing  Lear's  pictures  packed  off 
for  the  Academy.  I  shall  be  home  just  in  time  for  a 
visit  to  it  with  you — do  you  remember  our  visit  last 
year  ?  One  of  the  pictures  hangs  about  me  still,  a 
quiet  reach  of  the  Nile  all  dead  with  evening,  behind 
a  fiery  blaze  of  sunset,  and  in  front  of  it  the  weird 
gigantic  "  wings  "  of  a  Nile  boat — dark  olive  green  in 
colour.  There  was  a  strange  wild  creepiness  about 
the  picture,  but  I  doubt  whether  it  will  get  hung. 
Lear  has  "  Academy  Wednesdays  "  in  the  studio  of  his 
new  house,  which  he  has  hung  round  with  100  of 
his  water-colours  from  Egypt,  Palestine,  Montenegro, 
Greece,  Italy,  and  the  Riviera.  His  whole  life  seems 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  291 

to  have  been  an  artistic  "  Wanderjahr,"  and  perhaps 
it  is  owing  to  this  that  he  has  preserved  such  perfect 
freshness  of  feeling,  his  humour  and  gaiety,  his  love 
of  children  and  nonsense.  He  is  delighted  just  now 
with  the  sale  of  his  Christmas  book,  some  3000  copies 
have  gone,  but  his  profits  are  only  some  £60  !  Still 
he  is  happy,  and  every  day  he  comes  in  and  chats  and 
tells  me  of  some  new  idea  for  a  picture,  or  of  some 
change  in  a  picture  we  have  seen.  Surely  nothing  is  so 
perfect,  so  self-sufficing  as  the  artist-life. 

March  20  !  Is  it  possible  this  letter  can  still  be 
here,  dear  Olga,  lurking  in  secret  places,  when  I 
thought  it  resting  next  to  your  heart  or  buried  under 
your  pillow  to  woo  sweet  dreams  ?  What  a  change 
since  I  began  it  —  Lear  vanished  and  San  Remo 
vanished,  and  around  me  instead  of  the  soft  circle  of 
its  olives  the  hard  red  line  of  the  cliffs  of  Mentone  ! 
I  have  written  all  about  our  travels  to  Mi  mi — at  least 
I  believe  so,  but  I  got  into  mysterious  waters  which 
floated  off  budgets  of  letters  to  the  wrong  people  so 
I  don't  quite  know  what  I  have  said  to  anybody.  But 
I  don't  think  I  told  her  of  a  great  find  at  Ventimiglia, 
a  bleak  city  perched  up  on  a  bare  hill  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Roya,  in  the  shape  of  a  Church  of  San  Michele 
almost  wholly  made  up  of  bits  of  the  old  Roman 
city.  Its  apse  was  the  original  apse  of  a  Roman 
basilica.  Roman  masonry  was  built  into  its  walls,  and 
its  crypt  was  supported  by  Roman  columns  inscribed 
with  the  names  of  Augustus  and  the  like.  It  made 
one  realise  Italy,  for  Italy  is  a  mere  converted  Rome — 
a  temple  turned  into  a  church — the  Augustan  name 
used  to  prop  up  a  Crypt. 

I  am  going  on  well  again,  after  a  sad  tumble  back 
through  the  wild  excitement  into  which  I  managed  to 
work  myself  over  the  Voysey  judgment.  I  tried  so 
hard  to  convince  the  Liberals  at  home  of  the  real 
importance  of  the  decision,  but  they  either  cannot  or 
will  not  see  it,  and  I  worked  myself  into  a  perfect 


292  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

passion  of  disappointment  over  their  blindness  till  it 
told  on  my  health  and  I  fell  back  rapidly.  I  really 
didn't  imagine  I  had  so  much  interest  in  the  "Liberal" 
party  left,  and  what  there  was  is  certainly  effectually 
killed.  The  fact  is  that,  as  Francis  Lord  wrote  to-day, 
there  are  but  two  Churches  in  the  world,  the  Church 
of  the  Priest  and  the  Church  of  the  School-master  ; 
the  Church  of  Dogma  and  the  Church  of  Science. 
Bodies  like  the  Church  of  England  may  try  to  con- 
ciliate the  two  movements — at  least  portions  of  them 
may — but  every  day  makes  the  task  more  impossible. 
One  may  ground  one's  "  religion  "•  —the  moral  tie,  that 
is,  that  binds  our  life  into  unity  of  action  and  purpose 
— on  "  faith  "  or  on  "  fact " — on  the  outer  teaching  of 
Church  or  Bible  or  Sect,  or  on  the  inner  teaching  of 
experiment  and  knowledge.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
combine  the  two.  Have  you  read,  for  instance,  this 
new  book  of  Darwin's  on  Man  and  his  origin  ?  The 
two  admirable  reviews  in  the  Saturday  are  all  that  I 
have  seen  as  yet,  but  what  wonderful  vistas  of  inquiry 
and  speculation  the  book  must  open.  How  in  the 
presence  of  vast  problems  such  as  these  all  these 
Theological  controversies  shrink  into  littleness,  into 
absolute  unreality  !  "Sacrifice,"  "Justification,"  "  In- 
spiration " —all  these  things  will  seem  to  our  children 
as  absurd  as  Gnosticism  or  Transubstantiation  seem  to 
us.  I  don't  say  that  a  rational  religion  is  impossible, 
on  the  contrary  it  seems  to  me  possible  now  as  it  never 
has  been,  but  we  can  only  reach  it  by  flinging  to  the 
owls  and  the  bats  these  old  and  effete  "  Theologies  "  of 
the  world's  childhood. 

I  daresay  we  shall  find  the  summer  agreeable 
enough,  dear  Olga,  even  if  Mimi  and  Louise  do  flit 
away  like  the  Ancient  Mariner  to  the  realms  of 
frost  and  snow.  I  suppose  they  can't  help  it,  and 
that  they  must  have  killed  an  albatross  without  know- 
ing it.  I  wonder  whether  Louise  will  find  Riga  as 
entertaining  as  Oxford  ?  Remember  me  kindly  to  her 
and  all  at  Peak  Hill,  and  thank  Grove — when  you  see 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY" 


293 


him  —  for  his  prompt  compliance  with  my  request 
about  the  money.  Tell  him  it  was  for  that  landlady 
of  mine  in  whose  face  he  once  detected  "  traces  of 
hopeless  passion."  He  at  any  rate  removed  the  hope- 
lessness of  her  passion  for  the  payment  of  her  bill. 

Good-bye,  write  to  me  soon,  I  shall  be   at  Cannes 
(Poste  Restante)  till  April  15.  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

MENTONE, 
March  20,  1871. 

You  will  see  by  this  heading,  dear  Freeman,  that  we 
are  no  longer  at  San  Remo.  It  was  very  hard  to  leave 
the  place ;  it  had  done  one  so  much  good,  and  had  so 
grown  into  our  habit  and  life  in  the  four  months  we 
spent  there  that  it  seems  odd  to  say  good-bye  to  it. 
However  my  friends  wished  to  move,  and  even  I  began 
to  long  for  a  rather  more  bracing  atmosphere  such  as 
one  can  get  at  Cannes  ;  so  we  have  begun  our  joggings 
along  the  coast.  All  our  Florentine  plans,  as  I  think  I 
told  you,  have  been  changed,  and  now  that  France  is 
open  we  fall  back  on  our  old  Provencal  projects  and 
intend  to  move  homewards  by  Avignon,  Aries,  and  the 
like.  Our  first  halt  was  at  Bordighera,  a  place  the  very 
opposite  to  San  Remo  in  its  character,  with  a  vast  out- 
look along  the  coast,  bay  after  bay,  promontory  after 
promontory,  till  in  the  sunset  one  sees  the  pale  ghost- 
like shadows  of  the  Estrelles  above  Cannes.  It  was  like 
the  great  world  opening  on  us  again  after  our  months 
of  isolation  in  that  little  San  Remese  world  of  its  own. 
Bordighera's  great  boast  is  the  palm  ;  there  is  one  great 
garden  with  hundreds  of  them  which  looked  magnificent 
as  they  tossed  their  huge  fronds  in  the  wind.  To  us 
its  hotel  was  the  most  entertaining  feature  of  it ;  an 
"  Evangelical "  hotel  much  frequented  by  Exeter  Hall 
folk,  its  hall  decorated  with  exhortations  to  observe  "  the 
Sabbath,"  its  library  full  of  tracts  and  books  of  piety 
instead  of  the  usual  French  novels,  cards  with  "  Gospel 


294  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Charades "  scattered  over  the  tables  of  its  Salon,  its 
master  himself  a  minister  of  the  Swiss  Protestant  sort, 
and  profuse  with  offers  of  "  privileges"  in  the  shape  of 
"family  prayers."  It  was  wonderfully  amusing,  and 
fortunately  accompanied  by  a  capital  cuisine,  as  is  the 
case  in  other  Evangelical  houses  I  have  known.  There 
was  a  little  kidnapping  establishment,  too,  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, where  a  Mrs.  Boyce  entraps  little  Roman 
Catholic  orphans  and  turns  them  into  little  Protestant 
Mortaras.1  Is  not  the  earth  full  of  the  praises  of  Exeter 
Hall,  and  does  it  not  recall  the  analogous  efforts  of 
certain  folk  1800  years  ago  who  compassed  sea  and 
land  to  make  proselytes  with  somewhat  peculiar  results  ? 
One  of  the  most  disappointing  features  of  this  Riviera 
is  the  universal  "  restoration  "  of  its  churches.  It  seems 
to  have  been  greatly  stirred  by  the  revival  of  Catholicism 
under  the  Borromeos  of  Milan  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  hardly  a  church  has  escaped  the  transformation  into 
a  stucco  temple.  It  was  a  great  delight  to  find  some 
spared  at  Ventimiglia — not  "  Twenty-mile-ia  "  as  we 
christened  it,  but  the  old  capital  of  the  Intimiglii,  the 
coast-tribe  of  the  Ligurians  here — which  luckily  lies  on 
a  bleak  hill  summit  dreaded  by  tourists  and  modern 
"  colonies  "  at  the  mouth  of  the  Roya.  The  cathedral 
turned  out  to  be  a  fine  twelfth  century  church,  curiously 
like  S.  Stephen's,  Caen,  in  the  arrangement  of  its  in- 
terior ;  but  S.  Michele,  a  far  older  church,  was  actually 
built  on  to  the  apse  of  a  real  Roman  basilica  and  its 
under-crypt  was  supported  on  Roman  columns  covered 
with  inscriptions  to  Augustus  and  other  folk.  I  sup- 
pose we  shall  think  nothing  of  these  small  matters  when 
we  get  to  Nismes,  but  after  dwelling  in  the  tents  of 
Meschech  for  so  long  we  gave  a  good  jump  at  getting 
hold  of  the  Romans  again.  In  England  I  always  kicked 
at  them  as  somehow  anachronisms  and  confusions,  and 
I  remember  at  Leeds  raving  against  the  people  who 
pottered  over  Roman  roads,  but  here  they  have  a 
reality  ;  in  fact  Rome  underlies  everything  here,  and 

1  Mortara  was  the  Jewish  boy  claimed  by  Catholic  priests  at  Bologna  in  1858. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  295 

the    very    Middle   Ages    were    mere    travesties    of  its 
institutions. 

I  suppose  by  your  talk  of  "  proofs  "  that  Volume  IV. 
will  meet  me  on  my  return  in  May.  It  will  be  a  pleas- 
ant welcome  home,  and  will  harmonise  queerly  with  the 
other  William's  Conquest  from  among  the  traces  of 
which  I  shall  have  come.  As  you  say,  I  abode  Dutch, 
and  that  with  the  more  comfort  as  the  majority  of 
Englishmen  turned  more  and  more  unto  the  Welchry. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  war  I  was  uncomfortable,  for  I 
had  never  been  in  the  majority  before,  and  it  made  me 
feel  as  if  something  was  wrong.  But  when  even  the 
Daily  News  turned  unto  Parisian  sentiment  I  regained 
all  my  equanimity.  I  hope  when  I  die  they  wont 
mock  a  consistent  "life  in  opposition"  by  engraving  on 
my  tomb  abiit  ad  plures.  Concerning  Voysey  I  won't 
write  a  word  in  spite  of  your  challenge.  The  whole 
thing,  the  cowardice  especially  of  the  Liberal  clergy, 
and  the  excitement  of  trying  and  trying  in  vain  to 
prod  them  into  action  against  a  judgment  which  really 
smites  not  Voysey  but  them,  made  me  fall  back  again 
into  coughing  and  even  worse  things.  I  suppose  if  I 
had  died  from  loss  of  blood,  somebody  in  Convocation 
would  have  said  I  had  died  the  death  of  Arius.  Well 
— one  might  do  worse.  One  might  die  the  death  of 
the  men  who  rejoiced  in  the  death  of  Arius.  But  do 
you  really  think  (for  your  Toryism  in  ecclesiastical 
matters  a  bit  astounds  me)  that  a  Church  can  be  in  a 
good  way  whose  narrowness  makes  it  impossible  not 
merely  for  George  Cox,  but  for  me,  to  work  in  her  pale  ? 
I  don't  say  what  my  future  course  may  be  ;  but  if  I  do 
return  to  clerical  work  it  will  be  simply  with  the  very 
design  you  censure  in  Voysey — to  force  the  Church  of 
England  either  into  open  accordance  with,  or  into  open 
opposition  to,  the  conclusions  of  reason,  of  science,  and 
of  historical  criticism. 

When  I  get  back  I  shall  have  a  great  deal  of  work 
to  do  and  if  I  run  about  it  must  be  with  a  work-basket 
at  my  tail.  But  I  am  pretty  sure  to  visit  Somerleaze, 


296  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  if  the  Historical  Section  (at  where?)  is  possible  I 
will  strive  to  see  thee  in  thy  glory.  Roaming  through 
these  little  Ligurian  towns  makes  me  utter  just  the  old 
groans  you  used  to  join  in  when  we  roamed  about 
France, — groans,  I  mean,  over  the  state  of  our  local 
histories  in  England.  There  isn't  one  of  these  wee 
places  that  glimmer  in  the  night  like  fireflies  in  the 
depth  of  their  bays  that  hasn't  a  full  and  generally  ad- 
mirable account  of  itself  and  its  doings.  They  are 
sometimes  wooden  enough  in  point  of  style  and  the  like, 
but  they  use  their  archives,  and  don't  omit,  as  all  our 
local  historians  seem  to  make  a  point  of  doing,  the 
history  of  the  town  itself.  I  have  made  a  little  begin- 
ning for  that  of  Oxford  in  the  first  paper  I  sent  to 
George  Grove  ;  but  clearly  the  first  part  of  such  work, 
the  printing  and  sifting  materials,  falls  properly  to  the 
local  antiquary,  and  I  can't  suggest  a  better  subject  for 
your  inaugural  speech  as  President  than  the  enforcing 
this  on  the  class.  Of  course  where  cities  were  states, 
and  the  least  of  these  little  places  was  a  state,  their 
history  must  be  of  very  different  interest  from  that  ot 
English  towns  ;  and  here,  too,  the  history  of  them  all 
falls  into  a  certain  unity  from  their  relation  to  Genoa, 
on  which  I  spoke  a  little  in  the  case  of  San  Remo. 
Sometimes  the  relation  takes  odd  forms ;  here,  for 
instance,  at  Mentone  we  have  citizens  of  Genoa,  the 
Grimaldi,  settling  down  into  feudal  lords  of  Genoese 
dependencies  and  warring  with  other  Genoese  citizens 
who  have  become  feudal  lords  elsewhere,  as  the  Dorias 
at  Dolceacqua,  while  both  lords  would  still  vote  side 
by  side  as  fellow-burghers  at  Genoa.  It  recalls  Milti- 
ades  and  the  like. 

Good-bye, — it  is  time  to  go  to  bed,  and  you  know 
that  that  law  is  of  the  Medo-Persic  order  now.  Re- 
member me  to  all  those  that  care  for  me.  J.  R.  G. 

I  shall  be  at  Cannes  till  the  I5th  of  April, — let  me 
have  a  line  there. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  297 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

CANNES, 
April  14,  1871. 

[Mr.  Goschen's  "Local  Government  Bill,"  which 
proposed  to  make  the  parish  the  unit  of  local  adminis- 
tration, failed  to  reach  a  second  reading.] 

I  have  picked  out  a  good  pen  this  time  for  you, 
fastidious  man,  at  whose  own  writing  compositors  faint 
in  horror !  However  your  letter  was  readable  enough 
and  full  of  good  news,  especially  anent  next  autumn 
and  Ravenna.  I  have  been  grumbling  much  at  the  fate 
which  seems  always  to  stand  between  me  and  the 
Exarchate,  but  clearly  the  Destinies  meant  me  to  go  as 
Bryce's  tail,  which  is  seemly  and  right.  You  see  I 
haven't  got  far  over  the  Var,  or  into  Provence, — for 
this  Cannes  is  not  so  much  Provincia  Romana  as  Pro- 
vincia  Britannica  or  Broughamannica  ;  its  centre  being 
"  Le  Squar  de  Lordbrougham,"  and  its  shrine  his 
tomb  whereon  is  written  a  verse  of  "  his  Lordship's 
favourite  hymn."  Tait,  whom  I  caught  up  here,  tells 
me  that  hymns  were  Brougham's  last  mania,  and  that 
one  couldn't  find  "  new  collections "  fast  enough  for 
him.  I  wonder  whether  in  your  old  age  I  shall  have  a 
difficulty  in  finding  you  new  Tuppers.  It  is  a  delight- 
ful place,  the  more  delightful  from  its  contrast  with  our 
other  resting-places  along  the  Riviera, — one's  feet  are 
set  in  a  large  room  here,  and  instead  of  the  mountain- 
heights  pressing  you  into  the  sea  as  at  Mentone,  you 
get  a  wide  tumbled  landscape  with  distances  full  of 
delicious  colouring  and  gorgeous  sunsets  over  the 
Estrelles.  The  great  product  of  the  place  is  Frogs, 
Aristophanic  frogs,  who  be  green  and  live  in  trees. 
Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail  these  frogs  take  up 
their  wondrous  tale,  and  a  noise  like  twenty  saw-mills 
banishes  sleep, — my  sleep,  that  is,  for  I  suppose  neither 
frogs  nor  saw-mills  make  much  difference  to  you. 

We  have  been  dawdling  here  waiting  for  Marseilles 


298  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

to  be  quiet.  Most  of  the  fighting  there  is  done  at  the 
station,  the  station-master  is  shot  alternately  by  the 
troops  and  the  Commune,  and  all  luggage  is  converted 
into  barricades.  I  feel  with  you  about  the  murders  in 
Paris,  —  but  they  were  done  by  troops  which  had 
mutinied,  not  National  Guards,  and  before  the  Com- 
mittee had  been  able  to  seize  the  reins.  Nothing  is,  I 
think,  more  wonderful  than  the  order  of  Paris  now. 
They  do  not  even  exact  retribution  for  the  horrible 
court-martial  massacres  at  Versailles.  I  do  wish  you 
would  attack  "military  justice"  and  "drum-head 
courts "  ;  they  are  mere  inventions  of  red-coats  for 
murdering  under  forms  of  law.  Just  read  in  Kaye's 
second  volume  of  The  Sepoy  Mutiny  what  went  on  in 
India.  The  municipal  demands  of  Paris  are  undoubtedly 
just ;  but  Thiers,  who  is  and  always  has  been  the  ruin 
of  France,  hates  municipal  freedom,  and  has  just  coerced 
the  assembly  into  refusing  the  free  election  of  maires  to 
all  towns  over  6500  inhabitants.  As  to  the  Communal 
demands  of  Paris,  their  fault  is  not,  as  the  Times  says, 
that  they  are  mediaeval  and  obsolete,  but  that  they  are 
before  their  day.  When  we  have  got  a  real  European 
commonwealth  of  nations,  we  can  give  far  more  inde- 
pendence to  the  separate  bodies  which  make  up  each 
nation.  But  this  is  a  big  subject. 

Right  in  the  centre  of  the  bay  of  Cannes  lie  two 
islands,  one  of  which  I  sailed  to  yesterday,  the  site  of 
S.  Honorat.  One  knows  it  better  as  the  Abbey  of 
Lerins,  the  first  settlement  by  which  the  monasticism  of 
the  East  penetrated  into  the  West,  the  house  which  is 
to  France  or  rather  to  Gaul,  what  Fulda  was  to  Ger- 
many, or  Monte  Cassino  to  Italy.  Patrick  was  trained 
there  for  his  mission  in  Ireland  ;  and  it  is  at  Lerins  one 
finds,  I  think,  the  key  to  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
monasticism  he  introduced  there, — and  so  to  some  of 
the  most  salient  features  of  Celtic  Christianity.  In 
situation  and  influence  it  is  very  like  lona  ;  it  for  a  cen- 
tury gave  bishops  to  nearly  all  the  sees  of  Southern 
France,  as  Hii  did  to  Northumbria,  and  was  like  it  too 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  299 

a  great  literary  centre.  Do  you  remember  how  in  our 
High  Church  days  we  used  to  spout  the  rule  of  Vincent 
of  Lerins  :  Quod  ubique,  quod  semper,  quod  ab  omnibus, 
— which  in  these  later  days  seems  to  me  a  rule  for 
nothing  but  Unitarianism  ?  I  found  far  more  than  I 
had  expected  remaining ;  a  real  relic  of  the  old 
Lerins  in  the  shape  of  a  sixth  century  cloister,  with  a 
semicircular  vaulting,  and  the  oddest  way  of  getting 
round  the  corners  of  it  I  ever  saw.  It  was  in  perfect 
preservation,  I  suppose  from  its  massive  character,  as 
most  of  the  later  work  has  been  swept  away.  However 
there  is  the  shell  of  a  fine  twelfth  century  Church,  and 
a  "  fortified  abbey,"  the  only  one  I  ever  saw.  The 
free-booters,  Saracens,  Genoese,  Catalans,  and  what  not 
were  always  swooping  down  on  the  place,  so  in  the 
eleventh  century  the  monks  got  tired  of  being  massacred, 
and  set  about  building  this  castle  with  machicolations 
and  drawbridges  and  what  not,  while  within  it  was  a 
monastery  with  cells  and  chapels  !  I  think  Henry  of 
Blois  "  semi-miles,  semi-monachus  "  ought  to  have  been 
Abbot  of  Lerins.  Yet  more  curious  were  the  "  seven 
chapels  "  round  the  island,  of  which  most  remain, — as 
simple  and  as  old  as  you  like.  Did  you  ever  get  to 
Glendalough  and  its  Seven  Churches  ?  I  have  always 
longed  to  go  there  since  Goldwin  Smith's  weird  picture 
of  it  in  his  Irish  History. 

We  start  on  Monday  for  Aries,  Nismes,  and  Avignon  ; 
after  that  our  course  must  depend  on  the  political  look 
of  things.  I  should  greatly  like  a  look  at  Paris,  but  I 
mustn't  risk  anything  ;  a  night  in  the  open  air  or  in  a 
cold  cell  would  do  me  more  certain  harm  than  a  gun- 
shot on  a  barricade.  I  am  afraid  you  will  find  me  just 
as  great  a  prisoner  at  sunset  when  I  come  to  Somerleaze 
as  ever  ;  indeed,  I  shall  only  come  when  I  hear  that  you 
are  ready  to  change  your  hour  for  exercise  and  to  walk 
when  I  can  go  with  you  and  not  when  I  can't.  Cardiff 
is  a  place  I  see  no  reason  whatever  for  visiting.  I 
should  have  liked  to  see  you  enthroned  ;  but  Welch- 
land  is  abhorrent  to  me,  and  South  Welch-land  most  of 


300  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

all.  As  to  Welch  history  I  used  to  dabble  in  Celtic 
things  long  ago,  but  now  one  sees  what  far  more  in- 
teresting fields  there  are — especially  in  Italy — I  don't 
feel  disposed  to  bother  myself  about  those  lying  and 
unbreeched  barbarians.  Moreover,  the  Institute  is 
a  great  waste  of  time,  and  its  (illegible']  and  rushing 
about  would  never  do  for  me  now.  As  to  Little  Book, 
I  hope  to  make  that  my  special  work  in  England,  and 
if  possible  to  get  the  MS.  into  Macmillan's  hands 
before  starting  again  for  Italy.  Then  I  could  give  my 
winter  at  San  Remo  or  Mentone  to  the  Angevins. 
But  my  next  year  in  England  must  go  to  Dunstan, 
which  must  be  done,  and  which  I  can  only  do  at  British 
Museum,  save  the  MS.  at  Arras.  I  shall  be  able  to 
gain  time  now  by  the  quiet  and  seclusion  which  my 
health  renders  absolutely  necessary,  and  so  after  all  my 
illness  may  be  some  good  to  me.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  you  are  looking  into  Goschen's  bill.  It 
certainly  seems  to  me  the  most  masterly  piece  of  legisla- 
tion we  have  had  for  half  a  century,  and,  coupled  with 
Bruce's  licensing  bill,  to  entitle  Gladstone's  Government 
to  great  gratitude.  The  point  which  it  will  probably 
have  to  be  modified  on  is  its  choice  of  the  parish  as  the 
administrative  unit,  and  yet  Goschen's  reasons  against 
the  only  other  alternative,  the  choice  of  the  union, 
struck  me  as  strong.  But  it  is  obviously  inconvenient 
that  the  union  should  be  the  unit  for  one  purpose — 
that  of  health — as  well  as  now  for  pauperism — and  the 
parish  for  all  others.  Moreover,  so  restricted  a  constitu- 
ency as  the  parish  would  still  give  their  supremacy  to 
the  squires,  though  their  position  as  delegates  would  be 
itself  a  great  change.  The  consolidation  of  rates  is  an 
unmixed  good — so  too  is  the  change  in  the  incidence 
of  rating.  In  reality  the  bill  is  not  an  administrative 
reform,  it  is  a  social  revolution.  That  is  why  I  am  so 
glad  of  it.  Socially  I  look  upon  England  as  wholly 
feudal  and  barbarous.  When  I  see  your  Somerset 
peasantry  trembling  before  your  county  magistrates, 
I  thrill  with  anger. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  301 

Good-bye.  I  hope  to  be  in  England  in  a  month's 
time,  and  talk  with  you  over  this  and  many  things. 
Remember  me  kindly  to  every  one,  especially  Cox  if  he 
is  at  your  house. 

Do  you  know  you  sent  a  great  flush  up  into  these 
cheeks  of  mine  by  your  words  about  "  towns." — Ever 
yours,  dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  G. 

Sunshine  104  Fahrenheit. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
(1871). 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  really  thought  I  had  written 
much  to  you  about  the  sheets  of  Volume  IV.  ;  but  I 
suppose  I  had  got  muddled  by  the  two  reviews  of  it  I 
forwarded  to  Harwood  some  time  ago.  Its  -points  seem 
to  me  to  be  the  really  wonderful  way  in  which  you 
have  worked  in  your  local,  and  archaeological  sketches 
of  the  various  towns  (recreating,  in  fact,  by  means  of 
them  William's  Campaigns  in  Mid-England),  and  the 
use  you  have  made  of  Domesday.  I  had  certainly  no 
notion  of  the  wealth  of  personal  and  private  informa- 
tion which  could  be,  and  now  is,  got  out  of  it.  Of 
course  I  regret  the  absence  of  the  pigs  on  whom  and 
other  beasties  the  Commissioners  spent  so  much  time 
and  trouble.  But  I  suppose  there  will  be  a  special  Pig- 
chapter  in  Volume  V.  Then  too  I  think  the  constitu- 
tional part  is  excellent.  I  only  wish  it  wasn't  scattered 
up  and  down,  but  gathered  together  in  a  distinct  part 
like  as  in  Volume  I.  I  wish  in  future  editions  of  the 
Godwine  and  Harold  time  you  would  point  out  the 
modifications  which  the  constitution  was  undergoing 
during  that  period.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  great 
omission  at  present,  and  it  is  really  needed  for  the  full 
understanding  of  Billy's  doings.  Naturally  I  enjoyed 
the  ecclesiastical  part  a  great  lot,  especially  that  really 
glorious  covenant  between  Wulfstan  and  certain  Norman 


302  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  English  Abbots.  But  I  wish  your  Church  wasn't 
so  Bishopy  ;  there  be  priests,  deacons,  and  lay  people 
besides,  you  know.  The  weak  point  seems  to  me  to 
be  William  hisself.  You  admire  him  and  all  that,  but 
you  don't  quite  like  him,  and  you  are  uncommon  glad 
when  he  gets  a  whipping.  One  great  source  of  interest 
in  this  volume  lies  in  its  keeping  pretty  much  at  home  ; 
the  others  go  on  two  legs,  Norman  and  English,  and 
one  gets  a  bit  bothered  at  constant  transportations.  I 
fancy  I  feel  a  touch  of  fatigue  in  your  style  ;  fat  volumes 
will  tire  one,  even  if  one  is  an  E.  A.  F.  But  there  is 
only  one  bit  of  writing  against  which  I  protest  by  all 
the  gods,  and  that  is  the  account  of  and  meditation 
upon  Billy's  Death.  There  is  a  sort  of  undertaker- 
solemnity  about  it  that  I  cannot  away  with.  Orderic  and 
Huntingdon  always  mouth  on  occasions  of  this  sort,  and 
I  fancy  they  have  beguiled  you  in  the  matter  of  Billy. 

But  here  I  am  writing  chaff  and  I  know  not  what 
to  you,  when  you  have  a  hostage  in  your  hands  in  the 
shape  of  my  little  chapter  to  work  your  wicked  will  on 
in  revenge.  Stubbs  sends  it  back  with  a  "very pretty " 
verdict,  which  nearly  made  me  tear  my  hair.  I  will 
annoy  him  in  Chapter  III.  by  praising  "Documents" 
yet  more  and  more.  I  have  just  left  "  Dokkyments  " 
to  plunge  into  Ed.  II.,  and  I  feel  like  a  man  lost.  I 
think  I  shall  simply  say  that  "  all  further  remarks  on 
the  English  Constitution  are  adjourned  till  Mr.  Stubbs 
issues  more  docyments." 

Do  send  me  the  sheets  of  Historical  Essays.  If  you 
wish  me  to  review  them,  I  will  write  to  Harwood  and 
see  whether  he  is  willin'.  Let  me  have  Chapter  II. 
back  as  soon  as  you  can. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
June  27,  1871. 

[This  refers  to  the  series  called  the  Historical  Course 
for  Schools ',  of  which  the  first  called  A  General  Sketch 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  303 

of  European  History  by  Freeman,  appeared  in  1872. 
Pearson  is  Mr.  C.  H.  Pearson,  author  of  National 
Character,  who  went  to  Australia  in  1871.] 

DEAR  E.  A.  F. — I  will  wipe  away  the  tears  from 
the  Cocceian  eyes,  but  what  tearful  eyes  they  be ! 
"  If  you  can  run  down  on  Saturday  I  shall  be  there 
with  a  Gig  "  is  surely  not  a  very  elaborate  invitation — 
still  I  ought  to  have  answered  it,  but  the  sunlessness 
and  the  east  wind  are  responsible  for  my  misdemean- 
ours. I  don't  think  I  was  meant  for  this  great-coat- 
and -perpetual -respirator- country  ;  at  any  rate  my 
temper  in  correspondence  improves  considerably  by 
crossing  the  Alps.  But  what  would  Cox  do  on  the 
Riviera  where  there  is  sunshine  and  no  Longman, 
neither  folk  that  answer  not  letters,  neither  folk  that 
groan  ? 

Concerning  the  Libels  (for  I  reserve  the  word  "little 
book"  for  mine  own).  Yours  first.  The  opening- 
all  about  the  Rums  and  the  other  folk — is  in  your 
best  style,  and  fairly  within  a  boy  or  girl's  comprehen- 
sion— interesting  too,  and  quite  readable.  I  like  it  as 
well  as  I  like  anything  you  ever  did.  Concerning 
Hellas  and  the  Rums,  I  am  not  quite  so  happy. 
The  "  facts "  are  there,  and  the  "  dates "  are  there, 
but  the  history  isn't.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  as 
"  historical "  as  most  boys,  more  so  than  most  perhaps, 
but  writing  of  this  sort  used  simply  to  paralyse  me. 
I  never  could  learn  it,  and  I  think  from  all  I  have  seen 
it  is  this  sort  of  dry  rattle  of  names  and  dates  that 
sets  boys  against  history.  Moreover  isn't  it  beginning 
at  the  wrong  end,  and  would  it  not  have  been  better 
to  have  gone  on  in  the  style  of  the  opening,  to  have 
said  simply  what  Hellas  and  what  Rome  was  to  give 
to  the  modern  world,  and  then  with  as  few  names  and 
dates  as  possible  to  have  shown  how  they  give  it — 
Hellas,  free  manhood,  literature,  art,  etc.,  Rome,  the 
city,  law,  government,  humanity,  etc.  ?  All  this  in  the 
talkee-talkee  style  of  the  opening,  and  avowedly 


3o4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

taking  this  earlier  history  as  a  preface  to  the  histories 
that  follow. 

As  a  summary  of  facts  the  Rum  part  (not  (I  think) 
the  Hellenic)  strikes  me  as  excellent.  Supposing  it  to 
remain  in  the  present  form  I  would  strike  out  one  or 
two  things  not  absolutely  bearing  on  the  general 
history,  such  as  the  "  Agrarian  rows,"  and  the  plebeian 
origin  of  part  of  the  noblesse.  But  you  will  see  this 
yourself  in  the  proof  which  I  send  you.  .  .  . 

[Another  volume]  is  terribly  dry  and  dull  just  because 
it  leaves  out  all  that  is  really  interesting  in  the  Georgian 
history.  Where  is  a  word  about  John  Howard  or 
prison  reform,  or  the  Wesleyan  movement,  or  the 
discoveries  of  Captain  Cook,  or  Brindley's  canals,  or 
Watts's  steam  engine,  or  the  revival  of  art  under 
Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  or  that  of  poetry  under 
Burns  and  Wordsworth,  or  the  colonization  of  Australia, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.  ?  "  No  room,"  says  G.  But  she  finds 
room  for  all  the  petty  changes  in  the  Georgian 
Ministers,  and  such  facts  as  the  change  in  the  "  royal 
style."  I  do  think  what  we  want  in  history  is  to 
know  which  are  the  big  facts  and  which  the  little  ones. 
I  am  afraid  you  are  making  all  your  Harem  tithe 
mint,  anise,  and  cumin,  and  neglect  the  weightier 
matters  of  the  law.  I  bear  in  mind  what  you  urged 
ably  in  the  Saturday  Review  some  time  since  about 
history  having  to  deal  primarily  with  the  political 
developement  of  society  ;  but  then  it  must  be  at  times 
when  this  political  developement  comes  to  the  front. 
Now  in  the  Georgian  times  it  retires  to  the  rear,  and 
social  developement  occupies  the  front  of  the  stage. 

At  any  rate  there  it  is,  a  capital  piece  of  work  done 
by  a  clever  woman,  and  as  dull  as  an  old  almanack  ! 
I  daresay  governesses  will  find  it  "useful,"  but  it  will 
set  every  child  against  a  study  so  absolutely  without 
human  interest. 

Whereon  I  am  "Jack."  No,  but  I  wish  well  to 
the  little  fleet  of  paper-boats,  and  I  think  a  clever  girl 
like  this  would  do  better  if  you  left  her  a  bit  alone, 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  305 

and  didn't  keep  her  nose  down  to  the  political 
grindstone. 

Pearson  has  fled  to  Australia,  and  Bryce  is  seeking 
one  to  succeed  him  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  as 
Historical  Lecturer.  My  winter  abroad  makes  it 
impossible  for  me.  Likewise  I  have  refused  the  living 
of  Witham  Priory  in  your  neighbourhood  in  spite  of 
the  attractions  of  Bp.  Hugh.  The  "  Grote "  was  in 
your  best  form,  but  what  the  sentence  about  Shilleto 
was  before  it  was  watered  down  fancy  can't  imagine. 
Most  folk  would  be  satisfied  with  pounding  a  man  in 
a  mortar  without  moaning  that  they  couldn't  disembowel 
him  beforehand. 

Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  G. 

P.S. — I  showed  your  little  things  to  Bryce  this 
morning.  He  said  one  noteworthy  thing — that  these 
little  things  must  be  done  by  big  people — that  they  are 
the  most  difficult  things  of  all  to  do,  and  that  till  big 
people  can  find  time  to  do  them  they  had  better  wait. 
"  We  have  enough  bad  work  already."  In  the  main 
he  would  go  with  what  I  say  about  introductory  books 
altogether,  viz.,  that  the  ideas  should  be  taught  first, 
and  the  skeleton  of  facts  and  dates  afterwards. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

REV.  W.  LOFTIE,  SEVENOAKS,  KENT, 
September  1871  ? 

.  .  .  When  is  Volume  IV.  to  be  out  ?  I  hoped  to 
have  had  it  for  review  before  I  left  England.  I  have 
been  thinking  of  late  how  to  hitch  on  my  book  to 
yours,  if  ever  it  gets  written,  and  have  growled  much 
at  your  going  on  to  Billy's  death  when  you  ought  to 
have  ended  with  the  close  of  the  actual  conquest. 
Then  I  could  have  gone  on  with  England  under  Foreign 
Kings  straight  from  the  Conquest.  Billy's  death  is  no 
end  or  beginning  of  anything  except  Billy  on  earth, 
and  (in  the  latter  case,  I  hope)  Billy  in  Heaven.  I 


306  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

read  very  carefully  through  the  MSS.  of  Palgrave's 
Henry  I.  and  Stephen,  which  Frank  Palgrave  lent  me  ; 
the  Henry  is  very  fine,  and  the  close  of  the  Stephen 
masterly.  But  even  if  F.  P.  prints  them  as  he  pro- 
poses there  is  so  much  constitutional  and  social  work 
to  do  in  the  period  that  I  don't  think  it  would  be 
wrong  to  stick  to  my  original  plan.  Little  Book  goes 
on  very  slowly,  I  am  only  at  the  end  of  Cap.  3,  i.e. 
at  Evesham.  It  is  in  fact,  done  as  I  am  doing  it,  very 
hard  and  bothering  work,  and  involves  (especially  in 
the  Literature  parts)  a  good  deal  of  fresh  reading. 
Still  I  think  you  will  like  it  as  it  goes  on. 

I  hope  you  will  read  a  little  paper  on  Edward 
Denison  I  have  sent  to  Macmillan  —  it  will  tell  you 
something  of  my  old  Stepney  work  and  parish  life, 
which  few  but  you  ever  had  a  glimpse  of.  I  often 
think  how  people  would  stare  if  they  knew  the  real 
story  of  those  ten  East-end  years  of  mine,  their  good 
side  as  well  as  their  bad  side.  Denison  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  characters  I  ever  met,  and  what  I  wrote 
about  him  I  wrote  from  my  heart.  .  .  . 

Do  you  know  this  place  at  all  ?  To  the  world  it  is 
Sevenoaks,  to  me  it  is  Knole.  I  wander  about  the 
grand  old  park  with  Archbishop  Bourchier's  grey  old 
house  looking  out  from  among  the  trees.  What 
sumptuous  folk  Archbishops  were  in  those  days.  Knole 
is  big  enough  for  a  couple  of  noblemen,  and  yet  only 
four  miles  off  stood  their  house  of  Otford,  which 
seems  to  have  been  yet  grander.  But  Otford  has 
dwindled  into  a  pig-stye,  while  Knole  abideth. 

Good-bye.  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  wipe  the  tears 
from  eyes  Stubbeian  and  Cocceian. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

GENOA, 

October  30,  1871. 

...  I  am  resting  here  for  a  quiet  day  after  a 
month's  sight-seeing  (I  left  England  on  the  4th  of 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY" 


307 


October)  on  the  first  wet  day  which  gives  one  a  chance 
of  rest.  My  journey  has  been  a  delightful  one.  We 
jogged  slowly  down  the  Rhine,  stopping  at  Aachen, 
Koln,  and  Maintz,  then  struck  across  Germany,  and 
spent  a  quiet  Sunday  at  Wurtzburg,  and  then  pushed 
over  the  Brenner  to  my  old  pet  place  Verona.  Half 
my  weakness  and  bad  spirits  took  wings  and  fled 
away  as  I  basked  in  the  sunshine  on  the  thymy  hills 
looking  high  over  the  valley  of  the  Adige,  while  my 
companion,  Freeman,  was  working  away  at  his  drawings 
below.  The  delicious  sunshine  followed  us  every- 
where, to  Venice  where  I  spent  three  days  in  utter 
idlesse  on  the  Grand  Canal,  seeing  Murano — the  one 
great  thing  I  omitted  when  I  was  there  two  years  ago — 
to  Padua  where  I  found  the  Arena  chapel  in  its  little 
vineyard,  and  lost  my  heart  to  Giotto,  to  Bologna 
where  I  "  did  hospital "  for  a  couple  of  days  before 
visiting  Ravenna.  Ravenna  wants  a  letter  all  to  itself ; 
conceive  a  town  where  every  great  monument  is 
(literally)  as  old  as  Hengest,  where  the  tomb  of 
Theodoric  stands  untouched  with  the  great  cope  of  a 
single  stone  as  he  left  it  thirteen  centuries  ago,  and 
where  great  churches  with  bright  mosaics  stretching 
along  their  walls  from  west  to  eastern  end,  stand  for- 
gotten— as  it  were — in  the  grey  marshes  only  bounded 
by  the  pine-forest  and  the  sea.  Florence  with  its  life, 
its  gaiety,  its  art,  was  a  wonderful  change  after  the 
death  of  Ravenna :  I  spent  four  days  alone  there  (for 
Freeman  despiseth  "  picters "),  if  to  be  in  a  place 
where  one  knew  of  old  every  street  and  piazza,  where 
every  stone  was  pregnant  with  memories,  where  house 
and  gallery  and  dome  brought  closer  to  one,  and  made 
living  for  one  such  names  as  Dante,  Savonarola, 
Michael  Angelo,  Giotto,  could  be  said  to  be  "  being 
alone."  There  I  stood  once  more  in  a  region  of  the 
past,  loitered  for  a  day  in  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa, 
rode  yesterday  through  the  grand  mountain  scenery  of 
the  Spezzia  coast,  and  am  resting,  weary,  but  delighted, 
here  to-day.  To-morrow  I  hope  to  be  at  San  Remo. 


3o8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  left  England  suddenly, — a  month  before  I  had  in- 
tended,— but  my  health  broke  down  with  the  hard 
weather,  and  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  sudden  flight. 
I  bade  "  Good-bye  "  to  nobody,  and  so  I  fear  I  am  in 
many  bad  books  in  England.  But  I  hope  it  is  not  so 
at  Peak  Hill.  I  shall  be  very  lonely  this  winter  at  San 
Remo,  and  have  a  great  deal  of  hard  work  to  do,  so 
"  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  "  at  Sydenham  must  spare  me  a 
word  of  comfort  now  and  again.  When  does  Louise 
get  married?  I  spent  a  charming  fortnight  with 
Humphry  Ward  and  Mary  Arnold  in  Wales.  She  is 
to  me  the  Queen  of  Women, — absolutely  faultless. 
How  delightful  it  is  that  the  boy  I  love  best  in  the 
world  should  have  such  a  wife.  Good-bye.  Give  my 
kindest  regards  to  your  mother  and  all  at  home,  and 
believe  me  ever  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
November  17,  1871. 

You  certainly  had  a  good  time  of  it,  dear  Freeman, 
after  our  parting,  what  with  your  peeps  at  Italian 
*'  Johnny-houses,"  your  climb  of  the  S.  Gotthard,  and 
your  federalizing  at  Berne.  I  for  one  didn't  forget,  in  my 
admiration  of  "  the  walls  of  the  eternal  democracy,"  the 
democracy  itself;  I  hardly  remember  any  impression 
more  profound  than  that  which  I  received  from  that 
wonderful  lake  in  its  wonderful  setting  of  mountains. 
I  remember  the  Brookes  laughing  good-humouredly  at 
my  enthusiasm  over  the  temple  that  nature  itself  seems 
to  have  built  there  to  Freedom.  But  I  don't  feel  that 
my  love  for  freedom  clashes  with  my  love  for  Italy,  or 
that  one's  interest  in  liberty  need  sleep  on  this  side  of 
the  Alps  to  wake  so  strenuously  on  the  other.  The 
Piazza  at  Florence  gave  me  the  same  thrill  that  I  re- 
member on  the  Lake  of  Lucerne  : — I  am  afraid  an  even 
more  delightful  thrill,  for  after  all  Swiss  democracy  is  a 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  309 

democracy  of  institutions,  we  admire  its  constitution,  its 
landesgemeinde  and  the  like,  but  Florentine  democracy 
was  a  democracy  of  men.  Teutonic  freedom  is  too 
often  a  developement  of  man  on  one  side  only,  the  politi- 
cal, while  Italian  was  (I  feel  all  the  answer  that  lies  in 
that  "  was ")  a  developement  of  the  whole  man, — 
political,  intellectual,  religious,  artistic. 

I  own  that  your  indifference  to  all  that  free  life  of 
Italy  jarred  on  me  through  that  pleasant  tour  of  ours  ; 
I  felt  as  you  feel  when  Harry  Jones  and  the  Alpine 
Club  turn  Switzerland  into  a  "  Playground."  You 
seemed  to  me  to  turn  Italy  into  an  Architectural 
Institute.  Of  course  you  went  solely  for  the  purpose 
of  "doing  one  thing,"  as  they  go  to  Berne  for  the 
purpose  of  "  doing  one  thing,"  and  of  course  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the  excuse  in  either  case.  But 
still  in  either  case  there  is  just  that  little  "jar  "  of  which 
I  spoke.  And  this  was  certainly  not  lessened  when  I 
found  that  with  all  your  architectural  devotion  you 
could  still  find  room  for  enthusiasm  whenever  an 
Emperor  came  on  the  stage.  There  was  no  indifference 
when  you  stood  before  the  figure  of  Frederick  or  the 
tomb  of  Henry.  It  was  only  when  you  stood  before 
some  memorial  of  the  people  that  you  took  refuge  in 
your  sketching  book.  And  yet  to  my  mind  a  crowd  of 
Florentines  shouting  themselves  hoarse  on  their  Piazza 
are  a  greater  and  a  nobler  thing  than  all  the  Emperors 
that  ever  breathed. 

But  this  is  a  poor  return  for  all  your  jolly  talk  about 
Referendums  and  Volks-initiative, — the  last  of  which  I 
don't  quite  understand,  so  when  you  write  again  give 
me  a  little  preachment  anent  it.  I  remember  too  in 
our  chat  before  parting  talking  with  you  about  these 
municipal  matters.  If  you  have  picked  up  anything 
about  them  in  such  matters,  for  instance,  as  the  restric- 
tion on  right  of  citizenship  and  the  sharing  of  municipal 
property,  give  me  a  little  of  it.  When  I  was  at  Basel 
I  missed  the  Library,  but  I  saw  one  charming  book,  the 
very  copy  of  The  Praise  of  Folly  which  Erasmus  lent  to 


310  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Holbein,  and  on  the  margin  of  which,  opposite  a  de- 
scription of  "  the  ragged  mendicant  scholar,"  the  painter 
maliciously  sketched  the  portrait  of  Erasmus.  Where- 
upon Erasmus  turns  to  a  description  of  "  the  drunken 
profligate  "  and  just  jots  opposite  it  Holbeinus  ipse.  I 
should  like  to  have  seen  those  names  of  the  English 
scholars  there.  I  daresay  you  have  seen  (if  not,  get  it 
some  time)  that  curious  book  The  Troubles  of  Frankfort, 
that  gives  their  own  account  of  all  their  sojournings  and 
quarrellings  in  their  exile,  and  their  very  various  recep- 
tions at  the  very  various  Swiss  towns. 

As  to  the  dates  of  S.  Ambrose  at  Milan  there  is  a 
great  muddle  in  Murray,  but  Hemans  in  his  History  of 
Mediaeval  Christianity  and  Sacred  Art  has  taken  a  great 
deal  of  pains  to  get  at  the  truth  in  these  matters,  and 
what  he  says  is  mainly  this.  First,  there  was  a  certain 
Faustine  Basilica  which  was  incorporated  into  the 
Church  built  by  S.  Ambrose  as  the  Chapel  of  S.  Satiro 
(on  south  side  of  the  Choir)  and  which  still  exists  with 
mosaics  of  the  sixth  century  in  its  apse.  Secondly  came 
the  Church  of  S.  Ambrose.  This  was  thoroughly  de- 
cayed when  (868)  Archbishop  Anspert  restored  it ;  and 
Anspert's  basilica  "  had  become  so  ruinous  by  1 169  that 
another  restoration,  almost  a  rebuilding,  became  neces- 
sary," that  of  Archbishop  Galdinus.  To  this  last 
"  belong  the  facude  with  one  of  the  lofty  quadrati  cam- 
panili  flanking  it,  the  acute  arches  under  the  roof,  and 
the  entire  vaulting  "  ;  to  the  ninth  century  Church  be- 
long "  the  quadrangular  atrium,  the  bronze  portals,  one 
of  the  two  campanili,  and  perhaps  the  principal  portion 
of  the  double  colonnade  between  nave  and  aisles,  with 
gallery  destined  for  females,  according  to  ancient 
arrangement,  besides  the  crypt  (modernized  indeed,  and 
with  new  pillars),  the  massive  baldachino  with  porphyry 
columns  over  the  high  altar,  and  the  apse  with  its 
mosaics  of  Byzantine  art." 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY"  311 


To  Miss  Arnold  (Mrs.  Humphry 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  S.  REMO, 
December  19,  1871. 

Your  letter,  delightful  as  it  was,  made  me  feel  very 
guilty — guilty  that  is  of  chaining  you  to  a  "  long  table  " 
and  an  "  empty  room,"  when  instead  of  letter- writing 
you  ought  to  have  been  skating,  lounging,  chatting,  or 
love-making.  I  want  to  make  a  solemn  covenant  with 
you,  with  only  one  clause  in  it,  that  whenever  you  are 
tired  or  unwell,  or  in  any  way  disinclined  to  write,  you 
will  believe  that  I  am  infinitely  happier  in  the  feeling 
that  you  are  resting  or  amusing  yourself  than  even  in 
your  letters.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  the  Prince  is  better,  if  only  that  his  recovery 
will  deliver  us  from  a  deluge  of  that  domestic  loyalty 
which  believes  the  whole  question  of  republicanism 
solved  by  the  statement  that  the  Queen  is  an  admirable 
mother  and  that  her  son  has  an  attack  of  typhoid. 
I  am  sorry  when  any  young  fellow  dies  at  thirty, 
and  far  more  sorry  when  any  mother  suffers ;  but 
the  sentiment  of  newspapers  and  town  councils  over 
"telegrams  from  the  sick-bed"  is  simply  ludicrous. 
However,  one  remembers  that  all  France  went  mad 
with  anxiety  when  Lewis  the  well-beloved  fell  sick  in 
his  earlier  days,  and  yet  somehow  or  other  '89  came 
never  the  later.  But  I  have  one  little  prayer  to  make 
even  to  you  ;  it  is  apropos  of  Rossel.  I  want  you  to 
substitute  Delescluze  in  your  sympathy  for  that  heroic 
young  Protestant.  There  is  but  one  defence  for  a  man 
who  fights  for  the  Commune — it  is  that  he  believes  in 
it.  But  Rossel  boasts  that  he  was  never  a  Communist. 
According  to  his  own  account  he  was  only  a  hysterical 
young  patriot  of  the  Gambetta  school,  who  was  deter- 
mined to  fight  the  Prussians,  and  if  not  the  Prussians 
anybody  who  stood  in  the  way  of  his  fighting  them. 
I  own  I  think  a  drumhead  court-martial  an  admirable 
sedative  for  hysteria  of  this  sort.  But  then,  you  know, 


3i2  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  am  a  Communist,  and  people  like  old  Delescluze  are 
more  to  my  taste — men  who  believe  (rightly  or  wrongly) 
and  cling  to  their  faith  through  thirteen  years  of  the 
hulks  and  Cayenne,  who  get  their  chance  at  last — fight, 
work,  and  then  when  all  is  over  know  how  to  die, 
not  "  with  a  Protestant  minister  in  attendance "  and 
a  carefully -written  "journal  of  my  last  moments" 
on  the  table,  but  with  that  grey  head  bared,  and 
the  old  threadbare  coat  thrown  open,  as  Delescluze 
walked  quietly  and  without  a  word  up  to  the  fatal 
barricade. 

I  don't  think  I  envy  you  even  Worcester  Pond  and 
the  claret  cup.  If  I  envy  you  anything  it  is  the  "  gulph 
between,"  the  thoughts  of  which  struck  you  there.  I 
sit  sometimes  alone  here  looking  out  over  the  sea,  and 
I  imagine  such  a  gulph  in  one's  life  with  a  "  Vita 
Nuova  "  on  the  other  side  of  it.  But  it  must  always 
be  a  dream  with  me.  Isn't  it  very  odd  to  conceive  of 
life  without  the  hope  of  wife  or  child,  or  the  stress  of 
public  effort  or  ambition,  or  any  real  faith  in  a  here- 
after ?  That  is  my  life,  and  to  me  it  seems  about  as 
interesting  and  picturesque  as  that  of  a  "  heathen 
Chinee."  "  Your  business  is  to  exist,"  says  Clark,  and 
so  I  suppose  I  shall  go  on  "existing"  till  the  boredom 

of  it  becomes  too  great  and ;  but  I  am  talking 

great  nonsense,  when  I  meant  instead  of  all  this  egotism 
to  be  telling  you  of  a  little  water-colour  I  have  just 
bought  from  Mr.  Lear,  and  am  sending  home  to  you 
to  fill  up  some  little  nook  in  the  aesthetic  drawing-room. 
It  is  a  sketch  of  Crete,  with  Mount  Ida  in  the  distance, 
and  seems  to  me  a  delicate  and  charming  bit  of  colour- 
ing. I  coveted  it  for  myself  last  year  but  couldn't 
afford  it,  and  now  it  struck  me  that  a  marriage  was  a 
thing  cretd  notanda — not  that  I  have  got  quite  used  to 
the  notion  of  your  marrying  at  Easter, — settling  in 
your  new  home,  where,  as  far  as  I  can  judge  from  plans 
of  it,  there  is  room  for  everything  but  getting  your 
dinner.  I  notice  how  as  one  gets  on  in  life  the  relative 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  313 

proportions  of  drawing-room  and  dining-room  con- 
tinually change,  very  much  to  the  advantage  of  the 
dining-room.  But  then  one  must  begin  by  being 
aesthetic,  and  I  daresay  your  dining-room  will  be  big 
enough  for  me. 

I  hope  if  you  read  them  you  didn't  believe  a  word  of 
my  papers  on  Oxford.  It  seems  they  began  with  a  big 
blunder,  and  a  very  deliberate  blunder  too,  about  no 
historic  connection  existing  between  ^Elfred  and  Oxford. 
Professor  Babington  sends  me  the  tracing  of  a  coin  with 
"  ^Elfred,  Oxenforde,"  upon  it,  and  delicately  hints  that 
there  are  several  specimens.  I  didn't  run  down  and 
drown  myself  in  the  torrent,  because  that  (being  up  in 
the  hills)  is  frozen  over,  but  I  am  only  waiting  for  a 
thaw.  Meanwhile,  I  shall  of  course  desist  from  any 
further  attempts  to  write  history. 

A  happy  Christmas  to  you  !  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

VILLA  CONGREVE,  SAN  REMO, 
December  30,  '71. 


I  rejoiced  much  in  your  paper  on  the  Swiss  reforms 
in  the  S.  R.,  and  so  I  do  what  you  add  in  your  letter ; 
but  it  raises  one  question  I  can't  quite  solve  as  to 
the  practice  of  mediaeval  communes.  What  became 
of  a  burgher  of  London  if  he  settled,  say  at  Bristol  ? 
Did  he  remain  a  free-toll,  or  could  he  at  once  pay 
his  town -penny  and  get  his  name  written  on  the 
burghers'  roll?  I  don't  mind  me  of  any  mediaeval 
borough  where  admission  to  citizenship  was  ever 
refused  to  a  free  man  who  paid  all  dues  and  customs 
— the  practice  was  common  enough  later  on  when  the 
corporations  got  close  and  rich,  and  I  should  doubt 
if  your  Swiss  practice  is  a  "  mediaeval "  relic.  But 
how  were  the  Swiss  communes  or  boroughs  formed, 
— by  charters  Vrorn  whom? — and  can  they  be  formed 


3H  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

nowadays  (like  Brummagem),  and  if  so  by  Cantonal  or 
Federal  authority  ? 

The  weather  here  continues  pure  summer.  There 
isn't  the  least  trace  of  winter, — it  is  always  warm,  sunny, 
cloudless,  so  that  I  can  walk  about  without  a  hat  and 
the  like, — and  my  lung  seems  to  be  really  getting  on 
apace.  My  thoughts  are  wholly  taken  up  with  Little 
Book,  and  will  be  till  I  come  home  again  with  it,— 
I  hope — ready  for  press.  I  have  been  "  worriting  " 
ever  since  I  began  it  as  to  how  to  end  it, — how  to 
manage  the  last  chapter  from  Canning's  re-entry  into 
the  Liverpool  ministry  in  '22  till  to-day.  This  after- 
noon it  suddenly  flashed  on  me  how  I  could  avoid  both 
dangers — that  of  making  it  a  mere  newspaper  summary 
or  a  "philosophical  discussion  "-—in  some  such  way  as  this. 
i.  Canning — show  the  new  tone  which  came  over 
politics,  and  especially  over  our  European  relations,  and 
continue  our  foreign  policy,  wars,  etc.  to  the  present 
time.  2.  Colonisation — history  of  Australia,  emigra- 
tion and  the  like — to  the  same  date.  3.  Constitutional 
Reform,  from  Catholic  Emancipation  to  the  last  Reform 
Bill.  4.  Commercial  reform,  taking  all  one  can  of 
commercial  growth  by  the  way,  with  Free  Trade,  and 
doing  kootoo  to  Peel.  5.  Intellectual  progress,  popular 
education,  the  reforms  of  schools  and  universities, 
advance  and  generalizing  character  of  science  as  in 
Lyell  and  Darwin, — religion  in  the  philanthropy  of  the 
Evangelicals,  the  rise  of  the  "  Catholic  "  High  Church 
folk,  science  producing  religious  liberalism, — literature 
reflecting  all  these  various  tendencies  of  the  age,  especi- 
ally the  economical  and  historical,  our  romance,  humor- 
ists, poets.  In  this  way,  I  think,  a  boy  might  learn  to 
understand  what  was  going  on  about  him, — one  could 
be  perfectly  exact,  give  dates  and  all  that, — while  it 
would  avoid  the  controversial  tone  which  a  mere  chrono- 
logical arrangement  and  final  flourish  of  trumpets  over 
"  Mr.  Gladstone  "  would  involve. 

I  am  going  to  High  Mass  to-morrow,  inasmuch  as 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  315 

Catholicism  has  an  organ  and  Protestantism  only  a 
harmonium,  and  the  difference  of  truth  between  them 
don't  seem  to  me  to  make  up  for  the  difference  of 
instruments.  The  little  ones  here  have  been  keeping 
Christmas  more  Anglico,  Christmas  trees  and  plum- 
puddings  ;  while  the  little  Italian  urchins  have  been  star- 
ing at  the  quaint  "  Bethlehem  "  in  the  Capuchin  Church 
here.  I  look  in  now  and  then,  partly  because  it  really 
does  justice  to  Joseph — a  person  usually  badly  treated, 
but  who  has  here  the  garb  and  bearing  of  a  Venetian 
Doge,  which  was  pretty  much  his  position,  I  suppose 
—and  partly  because  I  get  a  deal  of  delight  out  of  the 
shepherds  who  wear  silk  stockings,  yellow  breeches,  em- 
broidered coats,  and  deliciously  frizzled  wigs.  A  Capu- 
chin is  in  attendance  who  acts  as  a  sort  of  "  Notes  to 
the  Bible,"  as  "  without  note  or  comment "  after  the 
Brummagem  platform  one  might  fall  into  all  sorts  of 
heretical  mistakes  as  to  the  reverend  personages  of  the 
scene. 

Have  you  seen  Stubbs's  "  Hymn  on  Froude  and 
Kingsley  "  ? 

Froude  informs  the  Scottish  youth 
That  parsons  do  not  care  for  truth — 
The  Reverend  Canon  Kingsley  cries 
History  is  a  pack  of  lies. 

What  cause  for  judgments  so  malign  ? 
A  brief  reflection  solves  the  mystery. 
Froude  believes  Kingsley  a  divine, 
And  Kingsley  goes  to  Froude  for  history  ! 

Good-bye,  a  merry  Christmas  to  you  and  a  happy 
New  Year. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  G. 


To  Mrs.  a  Court 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET, 
March  26,  1872. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  A  COURT — I  have  been,  like  Baron 
Munchausen's  horse,  frozen  up  ever  since  I  reached 
England,  and  it  is  only  to-day  that  sunshine  has  set 


3i6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

me  free.  My  arrival  was  the  signal  for  a  burst  of 
fierce  winter  weather — snowstorms  a  day  and  a  half 
long,  black  frosts,  bitter  rains.  Andrew  Clark's  face, 
when  I  walked  into  his  consulting-room,  was  that  of 
blank  horror  which  would  have  made  the  fortune  of  a 
Garrick.  He  at  once  proposed  to  hand  me  over  to 
Forbes  Winslow ;  it  was  not  a  case  for  ordinary 
practitioners  like  himself,  he  said  with  a  grave  humility, 
but  for  the  physicians  of  Colney  Hatch.  However,  I 
fascinated  him  into  tapping  and  punching  me  in  the 
old  way,  and  his  grimness  relaxed.  He  thinks  I  have 
made  great  progress  during  the  winter,  that  my  lung  is 
not  merely  passive  and  the  disease  promising  to  be 
arrested,  but  that  there  are  real  signs  of  healing.  In 
fact  he  asks  for  another  year  of  care,  and  holds  out 
prospect  of  a  cure.  Of  course  I  executed  a  Pyrrhic 
war-dance  of  delight,  and  have  been  ever  since  in  a 
state  of  wild  enthusiasm. 

Perhaps  it  is  this,  perhaps  it  is  the  reaction  after  my 
depression  at  San  Remo  that  makes  life  seem  wonder- 
fully golden  to  me  just  now.  Everybody  is  so 
thoroughly  kind  and  delighted  to  see  me.  There  was  a 
most  amusing  race  between  the  Stopford  Brookes  and 
some  other  friends  to  catch  me,  and  run  off  with  me 
on  my  arrival,  as  my  own  rooms  were  occupied  ;  and 
my  table  is  covered  with  pretty  notes  of  welcome. 
So  you  see  I  forgot  all  about  the  post,  but  I  am  far 
from  forgetting  the  friendship  and  kindness  at  San 
Remo. 

You  see  I  am  very  happy  and  feeling  wonderfully 
well.  I  am,  of  course,  up  to  my  neck  in  literary 
projects,  and  my  incessant  volubility  is  a  trial  to  my 
friends.  But  I  tell  them  I  am  working  off  a  winter's 
silence.  I  am  wonderfully  happy,  and  yet  I  should 
like  another  stroll  up  the  Foce  (?)  Valley.  But  man  is 
never  contented  even  at  his  contentment. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  317 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

April  27,  1872. 

[On  the  Historical  Review.  The  beginning  is  lost. 
Venables's  "Summary"  appeared  annually  in  the  Times.'] 

.  .  .  resource  by  only  treating  people  of  an 
European  bigness — such  as  Mazzini — by  only  treating 
them  after  death,  and  by  avoiding  the  "  newspaper- 
biography  "  of  the  Times.  But  to  any  one  who  knows 
what  a  part  Mazzini,  e.g.,  has  played  in  the  history  of 
the  last  thirty  years,  and  how  little  "  newspaper 
biographers  "  can  tell  about  him,  a  real  life  of  him  by 
such  a  friend  as  Stansfield,  for  instance,  would  seem  of 
direct  historical  value. 

As  to  the  "  Chronicle  of  Contemporary  Events  "  I 
stand  a  bit  alone,  Macmillan  doubting  its  commercial 
value,  Bryce  its  historical.  As  to  the  latter  that  will 
settle  itself,  if  as  I  hope  I  can  induce  Bryce  himself  to 
take  it.  My  firm  belief  is  that  nothing  is  more 
wanted  than  an  accurate  account  of  the  real  current 
history  of  the  day,  done  with  some  literary  skill;  where 
the  events  shall  be  given,  if  not  in  the  ultimate  relation 
to  each  other  and  the  world  which  only  time  can 
reveal,  yet  at  any  rate  in  some  sort  of  relation  to  each 
other,  and  with  the  amount  of  light  which  a  serious 
historical  student  from  his  knowlege  of  the  past  can 
throw  on  their  character  and  value.  I  don't  want  an 
"  Annual  Register,"  or  the  chronicle  in  the  Revue  des 
deux  mondes — still  less  Venables's  summary  of  the  year 
— but  something  to  which  all  these  point,  and  which 
none  of  these  realise. 

Where,  however,  I  especially  need  and  claim  your 
help  is  in  the  first  class  of  articles — those  which  treat 
of  a  subject  of  the  day  from  a  distinctly  historical 
point  of  view.  In  (of  course)  a  very  trivial  way  my 
middle  in  the  S.  R.  this  week  on  "  English  Loyalty  " 
will  illustrate  what  I  mean.  I  am  sure  that  people 
will  be  very  grateful  in  the  discussion  of  "  hot "  topics 
to  see  these  institutions  clearly  and  accurately  traced 


3i 8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

in  the  past.  I  will  say  at  once  that  the  sort  of  thing 
I  want  from  you  is  English  History  and  the  House  of 
Lords.  It  is  a  question  likely  enough  to  be  up  in 
April  when  the  Review  might  hope  to  appear  ;  and  a 
simple  expansion  of  what  you  say  so  well  in  your 
lectures  just  continued  to  the  present  day  would  be 
simply  invaluable  to  a  public  very  weary  of  diatribes 
on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other.  Tell  me  what  you 
think  of  it,  or  whether  there  is  any  other  subject  you 
would  personally  prefer. 

With  these  to  "  swim  the  boat "  I  could  face  a  very 
"  severe  and  historic "  lot  of  other  articles,  and  in 
future  numbers  you  may  fire  away  with  "  Swiss  Con- 
stitutions" and  what  not.  But  you  will  see,  I  know, 
that  I  can  get  others  to  do  these,  and  that  I  shall 
find  great  difficulty  in  finding  fit  men  to  do  the  class 
of  articles  I  am  specially  asking  from  you. 

I  don't  want  you  to  answer  this,  but  to  think 
over  it,  so  as  to  talk  it  well  over  when  I  visit 
Somerleaze.  At  Dickenson's  I  met  Church,  surely  the 
most  lovable  of  Deans.  At  any  rate  I  fell  straight- 
away in  love  with  him,  and  do  hope  from  a  word  he 
dropt  that  I  may  see  more  of  him.  How  kind  of  old 
Hook  to  still  remember  me  !  I  have  written  to  Stubbs. 
Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  A.  Macmillan 

DEAR  MACMILLAN — I  leave  with  you  the  sheets  of 
Freeman's  Sketch  of  European  History,  which  I  have 
just  looked  over.  It  is  good  throughout,  and  my 
suggestions  only  bear  on  a  few  details. 

One  I  think  important.  If  the  book  is  to  be  used 
in  schools,  each  chapter  should  close  (or  still  better 
begin)  with  a  short,  clear  summary  of  the  period 
treated.  Freeman  has  done  this  in  two  instances — not 
in  the  rest.  For  boys,  too,  the  summary  could  be 
better  treated  by  grouping  as  far  as  possible  events 
in  large  masses  chronologically.  Thus,  to  give  a  very 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  319 

rough  instance,  I  would  end  the  "  Roman  "  chapter  in 
some  such  way  as  this.  "  The  characteristic  of  the 
earlier  age  of  Roman  history  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
an  age  of  Conquest.  After  its  first  century  of  free 
government,  Rome  turned  to  the  conquest  of  Italy  in 
the  hundred  years  that  followed  (400-300  B.C.),  won 
in  the  next  century  (300-200  B.C.)  from  Carthage  the 
dominion  of  the  countries  round  the  Mediterranean  : 
and  in  the  last  two  hundred  years  before  Christ  pushed 
her  conquests  over  Asia  and  Syria  in  the  East,  Spain 
and  Gaul  in  the  West.  Meanwhile  her  own  civil  dis- 
sensions and  the  strife  between  her  rich  and  poor 
citizens  threw  her  into  the  hands  of  military  chieftains, 
and  the  Empire  which  had  been  practically  established 
under  Caesar  was  organized  by  Augustus."  I  only  give 
this  roughly  as  a  specimen  of  the  "schoolboy"  fashion, 
which  such  a  summary  might  take. 

To  turn  to  small  matters.  I  notice  a  section  on 
Roman  Literature — why  not  one  on  Greek  ? — -and  one 
on  the  rise  of  modern  Literature  through  the  Crusades  ? 

For    greater    clearness,  would    it    not  be   better   to 
place  the   settlement  of  Greeks  and   Latins    (now    at 
p.  11-12)  at  the  end  of  the  general  Aryan  settlements 
—say  at  p.  1 6 — so  as  to  go  on  straight  to  Rome,  etc.  ? 

Would  it  not  be  well  to  note  that  the  struggle 
between  Rome  and  Carthage  was  a  war  of  races — that 
it  gave  the  Aryan,  and  not  the  Shemite  the  empire  of 
the  world  ?  Freeman  has  done  this  in  the  case  of  the 
battle  of  Chalons,  "  a  struggle  for  life  and  death 
between  the  Aryan  and  Thracian  races."  Why  not  in 
that  of  the  battle  of  Zama  ? 

For  the  same  reason,  and  so  as  to  lay  hold  of  boy- 
knowledge  and  ^ojy-interest,  I  would  after  the  names 
Hasdrubal  and  Hannibal  just  point  out  the  "Baal"  in 
both,  so  as  to  link  it  on  to  what  the  boy  knows 
from  his  Bible. 

In  speaking  of  the  rise  of  Christianity  I  think  a 
word,  however  short,  should  be  said  of  its  moral  effect 
on  the  world — of  the  restoration  of  personal  inde- 


320  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

pendence  in  its  martyrs — of  representative  legislation 
in  its  Councils — of  free  discussion  and  free  thought  in 
its  heresies. 

In  Cap.  I.  Freeman  has  omitted  to  tell  us  where  the 
original  "  Ariana "  is.  P.  70,  introduction  without 
explanation  of  "  oligarchs "  and  "  oligarchy,"  hard 
words  for  boys. — Ever  yours  faithfully, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Mrs.  a  Court 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
[1872]. 

["The  Poetry  of  Wealth"  is  in  the  Stray  Studies. 
South  Sea  Bubbles  by  the  Earl  and  the  Doctor  (Lord  Pem- 
broke and  Dr.  Kingsley)  appeared  in  1872.] 

I  should  have  pestered  you  with  a  visit  long  ago,  my 
dear  Mrs.  a  Court,  if  I  had  not  been  continually  hoping 
for  a  day  when  I  should  bring  good  health  and  good 
spirits  with  me.  Unluckily  the  warm  weather  does 
nothing  for  me  and  Clark  looks  blacker  and  blacker 
and — but  you  know  how  hypochondriacs  (illegible}  me, 
or  would  if  good  taste  allowed  them.  One  hypochon- 
driac, however,  knows  how  to  croon  in  quiet,  and  not  to 
"  worritt "  his  friends  ! 

had  a  sort  of  instinct  I  should  be  a  prisoner  soon. 
So  a  few  weeks  back  I  turned  out  of  my  rooms  and 
turned  in  a  very  Preraphaelite  friend  with  carte-blanche 
as  to  money  and  design.  The  result  is  wonderful. 
The  end  of  my  room  reminds  me  of  a  conflagration,— 
beneath,  heaven  ;  above,  a  brilliant  red !  The  doors 
are  in  the  sea-sickness  style,  green  picked  out  with  a 
sickly  blue !  My  poor  old  writing-desk,  dear  from 
many  an  association,  had  been  clothed  in  light  blue 
with  lines  of  red.  When  I  re-entered  my  rooms  for 
the  first  time,  my  artistic  friend  had  just  begun  cover- 
ing it  with  black  dragons.  I  "yowled,"  and  dashed 
the  paint-boxes  downstairs,  but  the  dragons  had  already 
been  completed,  and  yawn  on  me  whenever  I  want  to 


> 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  321 

write  a  gay  little  note.  "  Is  it  nice  ?  "  I  asked  my  land- 
lady, "  sarcastic."  That  venerable  woman  stood  gaz- 
ing on  the  scene.  "  Not  nice,"  replied  the  critic  of  the 
kitchen,  "  not  nice,  sir,  no  !  but  certainly  spruce  !  " 

Yesterday  I  ran  down  to  Bethnal  Green  with  Sidney 
Colvin,  who  knows  more  about  French  art  than  most 
people,  and  who  was  in  raptures  over  the  Watteaus,  far 
finer,  he  said,  than  any  at  Paris.  I  don't  know 
whether  you  read  a  screed  of  mine  on  the  "  Poetry  of 
Wealth,"  a  little  time  back,  but  a  collection  of  this  sort 
is  just  one  of  the  big  bits  of  poetry  that  only  £  s.  d.  on 
a  gigantic  scale  can  bring  about.  And  there,  face  to 
face  with  it,  was  the  poetry  of  poverty, — Bethnal  Green 
in  its  rags  and  wretchedness,  wandering  about  it  in 
shoals,  staring  at  the  naughty  Greuzes,  at  the  marvellous 
Rembrandts,  at  the  dash  of  Horace  Vernet  (how  vul- 
gar and  bad  it  was  !),  and  the  grace  and  greatness  of  Sir 
Joshua.  Didn't  you  fall  in  love  with  that  delightful 
Mrs.  Hoare,  that  mother  bending  over  her  baby,  such  a 
mother  and  such  a  baby !  What  one  longed  to  know 
was  what  Bethnal  Green  made  of  it  all.  Very  little 
distinctly,  I  should  fancy  ;  but  more  a  sort  of  gorgeous 
haze  of  novel  and  unknown  beauty  and  colour — the 
sort  of  thing  I  should  have  from  the  first  half  hour  in 
one  of  the  "  Earl's  "  Pacific  Islands. 

I  remember  a  lady  friend  of  mine  going  with  me  down 
into  one  of  my  slums,  all  fresh  and  pretty  and  golden- 
haired  ;  and  as  we  turned  away  I  noticed  a  ragged- 
looking,  biggish  girl  sitting  on  a  doorstep  with  great 
dilated  eyes  ;  and  turning  back  asked  her  why  she 
looked  so.  "  Cos  she's  such  a  one — er,"  said  my  big- 
eyed  friend,  drawing  in  her  breath.  Now  my  friend 
was  merely  a  pretty  fresh  English  girl ;  but  to  this 
Dulcinea  of  the  slums  she  was  just  what  a  Sir  Joshua 
is  to  us — a  "  One — er." 

I  see  these  people  leaning  over  the  palings  in  the 
park  or  grouped  about  the  gates  at  a  grand  dinner — 
all  that  unknown  wealth  and  ease  and  beauty,  those 
horses  sweeping  by,  those  gent  flunkies,  those  girls 


;::  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

with  bright  jewels  and  bore   arms   are  to   them    the 
Poetry  of  Poverty. 

But  where  am  I  running  to  ?  Do  always  write  to 
me  as  you  write  to  that  dear  friend  of  yours  who  is 
drawing  near  to  the  unknown  land.  How  glad  I  am 
you  have  her  with  you  again !  Your  words  came  like  a 
dumb  peal,  that  soft  music  of  muffled  bells  I  used  to 
hear  long  ago. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Fi 


HOTEL  DE  L'UxirEis,  FLOI.I 
Stpttmitr  18,  l8~: 

(Direct  " Paste  Restante  "  as  I  may  change  my  Hotel.) 

You  see,  dear  Freeman,  I  am  where  you  have  ne 
been,  in  the  dear  city  by  the  Arno.  I  left  England  on 
the  9th,  and  spent  two  pleasant  days  in  Paris  with  the 
Humphry  Wards  who  were  on  their  return  home  from 
their  Long  Vacation  Tour ;  then  I  span  along  to 
Bologna  where  I  had  hoped  to  meet  the  Brookes.  But 
I  found  that  "  finding  little  to  see  in  North  Italy  "  they 
had  spent  their  day  at  Ravenna  and  rushed  on  to  the 
Arno.  I  was  too  disappointed  and  tired  to  visit  Ravenna 
again  by  myself,  so  leaving  it  for  the  spring  I  came  on 
here  at  once. 

I  made  my  journey  tolerable  by  long  chats  with  an 
American  bishop  and  an  Italian  carpenter.  Hie  first 
was  a  delightful  fellow,  in  reality  absolutely  free  from 
vanity,  but  in  speech  the  vainest  bishop  that  ever  walked, 
which  from  my  experience  of  the  R.  Reverend  Bench,  is 
saying  a  good  deaL  "  You  see  I  am  a  bishop,"  he  said 
gaily, — pointing  to  his  violet  shirt, — "  yes  !  I  am  the 
youngest  Bishop  in  America.  I  am  only  thirty-eight 
now,  and  when  I  was  consecrated  I  was  only  thirty-six. 
Many  of  my  clergy  were  priests  before  I  was  born." 
It  was  charming  to  listen  to  his  croon  of  admiration 
over  him«a»lf  and  his  talent.  "I  owe  my  elevation 
simply  to  my  talents  !  I  am  remarkably  girted !  And 
yet  my  talents  are  not  as  brilliant  as  they  were  in 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  323 

my  boyhood.  I  was  the  most  remarkable  boy  !  Still 
I  am  very  gifted,  and  have  much  to  thank  God 
for  in  giving  me  the  talents  which  raised  me  to  my 
bishoprick  !  "  It  was  so  much  better  than  our  pre- 
latic  maunderings  about  "  calling "  and  "  unworthi- 
ness."  He  was  a  thoroughly  good  fellow,  swore  by 
Newman,  was  a  Liberal  and  had  no  fear  of  freedom, 
believed  that  "  American  ideas  "  would  soon  liberalise 
Catholicism,  laughed  at  the  fuss  made  about  "Infalli- 
bility," because  no  Pope  would  decide  in  any  other  sense 
than  that  generally  held  by  the  doctors  of  the  Church. 
"  If  a  Pope  went  mad,  sir,  he  would  be  locked  up,  and 
nobody  would  dream  of  regarding  his  ravings  as  in- 
fallible. And  you  may  push  that  principle  a  good  long 
way,  you  see  ! "  Yet  more  striking  was  what  he  said 
of  the  Irish  Immigrants.  "  They  love  their  faith,  don't 
they  ?  "  said  I.  "  Not  their  faith,"  he  answered,  "  but 
their  works !  In  Ireland  the  priest  follows  them  about 
with  a  good  whip,  and  is  their  master, — and  so  they  are 
good.  When  they  land  in  America  they  find  them- 
selves their  own  masters.  No  American  priest  would 
dream  of  tyrannizing  over  his  equals.  And  so  they 
break  out  into  excess.  But  after  all  it  is  better  for 
them  to  learn  freedom  in  this  way  than  not  to  learn  it 
at  all.  I  don't  believe  in  *  good  Catholics  '  that  are  so 
because  they  are  slaves."  On  the  whole,  I  was  pretty 
well  reconciled  to  Episcopacy  by  my  Bishop  of  Spring- 
field, N.W. 

It  is  jolly  to  be  in  Florence  again,  though  the  sun- 
shine is  of  the  torrid  zone  order.  I  saw  a  labourer 
working  in  his  shirt,  and  wished  I  had  brought  out  a 
good  all  round  surplice,  which  might  dispense  with  under 
habiliments.  As  yet  I  have  seen  only  a  few  things 
which  I  had  not  time  for  when  I  was  here  before, — things 
which  you  would  have  found  time  for  anyhow,  I  mean 
the  two  basilicas  at  San  Miniato  and  Fiesole.  Both 
are  of  the  same  date,  1016  and  1028  ;  the  first  much 
larger  and  more  grandly  situated  than  the  other  (it 
stands  atop  of  a  hill,  looking  grandly  down  on  Florence 


324  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  its  great  domes  and  towers),  but  sheeted  over  with 
the  Giotto  work,  the  marbles  etc.  one  sees  so  much  of 
in  the  famous  tower  and  the  Duomo,  and  even  its 
original  columns  all  cased  in  Scagliola  !  Fiesole  is  a 
poor  little  hamlet  now,  and  so  they  left  the  church 
much  more  alone.  Both  are  of  the  Zeno-type  at 
Verona  in  construction,  but  I  notice  that  this  raised 
presbytery  needs  a  great  long  nave  to  make  it  really 
effective.  With  the  shorter  nave  of  these  two  churches 
it  looks  simply  like  another  church,  which  you  can't  see 
from  the  church  itself.  The  best  thing  I  have  seen 
architecturally  to-day  was  San  Spirito, — a  late  business 
of  Brunelleschi's  and  full  of  all  kind  of  faults  in  detail. 
But  it  seemed  to  me  to  have  a  real  originality  of  its  own 
in  this  way,  that  being  built  (fifteenth  century)  at  a 
time  when  the  big  Popey  altars  had  come  in  and  hid  the 
older  apses  and  choirs,  Brunelleschi  evidently  like  a 
sensible  man  took  his  Popey  altar  as  a  point  of  de- 
parture,— stuck  it  down  in  a  great  choir  under  a  central 
dome,  flanked  it  on  either  side  by  the  highest  transepts 
you  ever  saw,  six  bays  apiece,  and  reduced  the  eastern 
limb  to  just  such  another  transept.  So  that  in  fact  if  it 
weren't  for  the  long  and  fine  nave  you  would  have  a 
grand  Eastern  Cross  church  with  the  altar  in  the  middle 
of  it.  Unluckily  the  conception  of  the  ground  plan 
isn't  carried  out  above, — and  above  all  the  Dome  which 
ought  to  be  a  whacker  is  a  poor  wee  thing. 

Please  get  for  me  Parker  s  address  at  Rome,  and  if  you 
can  spare  him  a  line  to  say  I  shall  be  there  about  the 
beginning  of  November  and  bid  him  be  good  to  me,  so 
much  the  better.  Likewise,  if  you  have  copies  of  your 
papers  on  Lucca  and  Pisa  send  them  to  me  at  once, — as 
I  am  going  there  in  about  a  fortnight,  and  should  like 
to  learn  a  bit.  I  am  very  well, — started  from  England 
in  very  different  health  from  the  miserable  critter  of  last 
year's  journey,  and  am  still  well,  though  a  little  fatigued 
with  the  train-work  and  the  excessive  heat  and  the 
mosquitoes.  But  that  will  soon  pass  away.  Write  to 
me  soon,  and  tell  me  all  the  news  of  your  meeting  at 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  325 

Crewkerne,  etc.  But  at  any  rate  send  me  in  time  (if 
you  have  them)  the  Lucca,  etc.,  papers. — Ever  yours, 
dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  W.  Boyd  Dawkins 

FLORENCE, 

October  1872. 

I  find  from  one  of  Freeman's  amusing  letters,  dear 
Dawkins,  with  a  postscript  of  yours,  that  you  have 
been  down  at  Taunton,  and  fighting  with  wild  beasts  of 
orthodoxy  such  as  H.  at  Ephesus.  I  wish  I  could 
have  been  of  the  party,  and  I  might  well  have  been  but 
for  my  wish  to  spend  a  month  with  the  Brookes  at 
Florence  before  entering  on  my  winter  exile.  Unluckily 
the  Brookes  are  called  hurriedly  home,  and  so  I  have 
fallen  between  two  stools.  But  Florence  consoles  one 
for  a  good  many  disappointments. 

I  had  great  fun  in  running  over  from  England,  and 
spent  a  couple  of  days  in  Paris  with  Humphry  Ward  and 
his  new  wife,  who  have  been  scampering  about  the  Black 
Forest,  Switzerland,  and  the  Italian  Lakes  through  the 
Long,  after  the  fashion  of  young  Tutors.  There  is 
something  curiously  petty  anent  the  present  arrangement 
of  French  affairs.  They  have  left,  for  instance,  all  the 
burnt  building  under  the  Commune  still  in  ruins,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Palais  Royal,  by  way  of  keeping 
up  the  "  Red  spectre  "  to  frighten  the  bourgeoisie  into 
conservatism.  I  don't  think  I  shall  ever  forget  the  day 
when  I  passed  through  Marseilles  and  saw  Paris  under 
fire.  But  surely  there  was  something  nobler  even  in  the 
ends  of  the  Commune  than  in  this  shopkeeper's  (illegible} 
of  M.  Thiers.  My  most  amusing  comrade  en  route 
was  a  Yankee  Bishop,  a  "  young  thing  "  of  thirty-eight, 
who  has  already  been  consecrated  a  couple  of  years,  but 
was  still  ingenuously  proud  of  his  prelacy  and  showed 
his  violet  shirt  (he  was  a  Roman  Catholic  bishop)  with 
the  greatest  self-satisfaction.  "  I  owe  my  rise  entirely  to 
my  talents,"  he  observed  sweetly, — "  not  that  I  am  as 
talented  as  I  once  was !  I  was  a  wonderful  boy  !  Still 


326  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  have  great  talents  no  doubt,  and  it  is  to  these  alone 
that  I  owe  my  elevation."  Then  there  was  an  Italian 
cabinetmaker  who  had  seen  Garibaldi  in  '59  ride  into 
Como.  "  I  felt  he  was  a  hero  because  he  was  the  one 
cool  head  and  quiet  voice  among  us."  I  delighted  him 
by  telling  him  a  story  of  Giuseppe  Mazzini,  which  you 
may  not  have  heard.  *'  What  would  you  have  taught 
in  school  ? "  asked  a  friend  of  mine.  "  One  thing  at 
any  rate  in  all,"  replied  Mazzini,  "and  that  is  some 
knowledge  of  Astronomy.  A  man  learns  nothing  if  he 
hasn't  learnt  to  wonder,  and  Astronomy  better  than  any 
science  teaches  him  something  of  the  mystery  and 
grandeur  of  the  universe.  Now  a  man  who  feels  this 
will  soon  feel  something  of  his  own  greatness  and 
mystery,  and  then  for  the  first  time  he  is  a  Man."  I 
wonder  whether  Manchester  would  admire  that  as  I 
admire  it. 

Yes,  Florence  consoles  me  for  a  good  deal, — especi- 
ally when  one  isn't  melting  away  into  the  Arno.  When 
I  arrived  some  weeks  ago  the  sun  was  more  intense 
than  any  heat  I  ever  felt  even  in  the  Riviera.  That 
great  dome,  that  exquisite  tower  of  Giotto,  glowed  with 
heat  and  light  as  they  rose  into  the  cloudless  sky. 
How  I  wish  you  were  here,  dear  Dax !  You  know 
the  general  look  of  the  place.  It  lies  in  a  basin  of  the 
Arno  with  low  hills  close  round  it,  and  the  higher  line 
of  the  Apennines  behind,  a  brown  mass  of  houses  float- 
ing as  it  were  round  great  square  palazzi  and  long 
church-masses  ;  and  above  all  the  mighty  cathedral  and 
the  huge  Town  Hall.  There  is  something  to  me 
especially  delightful  in  this  sternness  and  gloomy  defiance 
of  the  greater  Florentine  buildings, — just  because  it 
serves  as  contrast  to  the  art  work  so  profusely  scattered 
about  the  frescoes  and  statues  and  exquisite  carvings 
that  fringe,  as  it  were,  this  stern  exterior.  Here  Art  is 
everything, — everything  save  History.  I  don't  know 
whether  I  like  best  lounging  through  the  great  galleries 
or  sauntering  down  street  after  street,  whose  names  have 
been  familiar  to  me  for  years. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  327 

I  shall  stay  here  till  the  beginning  of  November 
when  the  cold  sets  fairly  in,  and  when  Rome  gets  cool 
enough  after  the  rains  to  live  in  without  malaria.  I 
hope  that  Clark's  allowing  me  to  spend  the  winter  in 
Rome  (it  is  the  first  time  I  could  get  his  permission) 
means  that  I  shall  be  allowed  to  spend  next  winter  in 
England.  At  any  rate,  believe  that  I  am  far  far  better 
than  I  could  ever  have  hoped  to  have  become,  though  a 
very  little  still  suffices  to  throw  me  back.  Remember 
what  a  great  pleasure  a  letter  is  in  these  far-off  parts. 
My  direction  till  the  beginning  of  November  is  Poste 
Restante,  Florence  ;  after  that  Poste  Restante,  Rome. 
But  I  hope  to  hear  from  you  at  the  first  address.  I 
wish  I  had  seen  you  in  London,  (why  do  not  you 
spend  -|d.  on  a  card  to  forewarn  me  of  your  coming  ?) 
if  only  to  congratulate  you  on  your  Professorship.  I 
begin  to  think  I  am  the  one  human  being  left  who  is 
not  a  Professor  with  hundreds  a  year. — Believe  me, 
dear  Boyd  Dawkins,  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  the  Rev.  Isaac  Taylor 

HOTEL  DE  LA  PAIX,  FLORENCE, 
October  5,  1872. 

It  is  an  immense  comfort,  my  dear  Taylor,  that  you 
have  really  settled  down  at  some  definite  corner  of  the 
earth  in  your  plannings.  I  came  away  from  Twicken- 
ham with  a  sort  of  Europe-  Asia-  Africa-  and  America- 
feeling, — an  oppressive  sense  of  the  size  and  infinite 
variety  of  the  world  which  I  don't  think  I  ever  had 
before.  When  I  listened  to  your  easy  transitions  from 
a  suggestion  of  the  Second  Cataract  to  that  of  Madeira, 
your  passing  preference  for  Lisbon,  and  your  glance 
at  Algiers,  I  remember  thinking,  though  I  did  not 
venture  in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Taylor  to  express  the 
thought,  that  one  of  the  temptations  would  have  been 
no  temptation  to  me,  and  that  when  "  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world"  were  spread  at  my  feet  I  should  have  been 


328  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

simply  "'mammered,"  as  my  poor  folk  used  to  say. 
For  myself  I  haven't  a  bit  of  the  Ida-Pfeiffer  feeling, 
and  should  simply  feel  giddy  at  circumnavigating  the 
globe.  I  like  a  little  quiet  flight  over  the  Alps,  and 
then  I  settle  down  on  my  little  bough  and  twitter  till 
it  is  time  to  fly  back  again.  I  was  so  wild  for  a  com- 
panion in  England  that  had  you  taken  me  then 
I  would  have  gone  to  Cheops'  land  or  any  other  ;  but 
a  month  in  Italy  has  reconciled  me  to  my  solitary  lot 
in  some  measure,  and  the  Pyramids  have  become  an 
Abomination.  Moreover,  I  have  plunged  wildly  into 
work,  and  if  I  go  on  as  I  am  doing  shall  have  got 
my  book  finished  by  Christmas  ;  which  Christian  Feast 
I  shall  then  be  able  to  celebrate  with  High  Jinks  suit- 
able to  its  solemnity.  Seriously,  my  dear  Taylor,  I 
am  in  the  humour  for  working  and  getting  Little 
Book  off  my  hands,  and  if  I  go  P.  and  O.-ing  (i) 
I  shall  probably  never  finish  it  at  all  (2)  I  shall  have 
to  break  into  my  work  by  writing  for  S.  R.  and  bread, 
and  (3)  I  shall  do  myself  no  good,  for  my  cough  is 
gone  to  sleep,  and  as  Tommy  Moore  saith,  when 
"  catarrh  sleepeth,  wake  it  not "  ;  so  had  we  not  better 
say  that  the  Idle  Apprentice  should  go  up  the  Nile, 
and  join  the  Industrious  Apprentice  at  Rome  when 
his  Pyramidal  course  is  run  ?  .  .  .  . 

The  Brookes  left  me  at  the  beginning  of  the  week, 
and  I  am  in  the  hands  of  Yankee  Gals,  who  flourish 
and  abound  here.  They  tell  me  that  in  Yankee  Land 
a  popular  preacher  gets  his  ^1500  clear,  all  curates 
paid,  etc.  !  Shall  I  resume  my  white  tie  across  the 
Western  Wave?  Imagine — yes,  you  capitalists  can 
imagine  but  I  can't — £i$oo  a  year  clear!  But  then 
saith  my  Yankee  gal,  "You  would  have  to  swallow 
our  canons,  you  know  !  "  "  Carissima  mia,"  I  reply, 
"  for  £  1 500  a  year  I  would  swallow  all  the  artillery 
in  America." 

I  had  an  awful  steeplechase  up  the  Uffizi  and  the 
Pitti  stairs  so  long  as  the  Brookes  were  here ;  we  used 
to  go  about,  each  of  us  with  a  volume  of  Murray 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  329 

in  one  hand  and  a  volume  of  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle 
in  the  other.  Our  lightest  talk  was  of  Fra  Bartolomeo 
and  the  frescoes  at  the  Carmini.  But  art  has  fled  with 
Stopford  over  the  Apennines.  I  do  Little  Book  all 
the  morning,  and  lounge  in  the  sunshine  all  the  after- 
noon, and  do  dinner  and  Yankee  Gal  till  I  go  to  bed. 
That  is  what  I  call  life, — not  all  that  treadmill  — 
asstheticism,  big  volumes,  and  tall  staircases,  into  which 
my  blighted  existence  was  rapidly  dying.  Freeman 
has  a  way  of  saying  if  you  want  him  to  look  at  any- 
thing after  1200,  "It  isn't  my  period."  How  he 
would  have  escaped  the  Giottos !  But  I  haven't  his 
courage, — oh,  those  Crowes  !  No  wonder  my  Roman 
friends  thought  the  bird  an  unlucky  one.  But  they 
didn't  know  what  an  awfully  heavy  bird  he  is  to 
carry  !  .  .  . — Faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  Mrs.  a  Court 

HOTEL  DE  LA  PAIX,  FLORENCE, 
October  6,  1872. 

I  often  wonder  what  you  were  when  you  were  not 
(to  use  your  own  self-description)  "  feeble  and  fatuous," 
dear  Mrs.  a  Court;  for  even  in  this  terrible  state 
when  you  can  neither  "  read  nor  think "  you  seem  to 
be  able  to  write  the  pleasantest  letters  in  the  world. 
There  are  some  people  that  have  that  peculiar  quality 
of  brightness,  a  sort  of  genial  activity  of  temper  that 
acts  upon  me  like  a  flash  of  sunshine,  and  here  I  come 
across  it.  I  remember  how  "  sunny  "  those  afternoons 
used  to  feel  at  San  Remo,  when  you  whirled  me  out  of 
the  Club  and  the  Blues,  or  those  eventides  when  chat 
blended  in  such  an  odd  way  with  Schubert, — ah,  well — 
and  here  I  am  "  sitting  alone,  sitting  alone  "  by  Arno 
with  nothing  to  comfort  me  but  liberal  sunshine  and 
the  Yankee  girl  of  the  table  d^hote.  The  Stopford 
Brookes  flitted  away  a  week  ago.  Till  then  we  used 
to  spend  all  day  in  churches  and  picture-galleries,  with 
huge  volumes  of  Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle  under  our 


330  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

arms,  getting  up  the  "  old  masters "  in  the  most 
orthodox  fashion  ;  though  our  studies  were  sadly 
broken  by  Brooke's  tendency  to  fling  himself  down 
whenever  he  could  in  the  sunshine,  and  my  tendency 
to  the  most  frivolous  and  unaesthetic  talk.  However, 
it  is  all  over  now.  I  haven't  troubled  the  stairs  of 
Pitti  or  Uffizi  since  they  went,  or  lounged  in  the 
convent  of  San  Marco  or  done  kootoo  to  the  Giottos 
of  Santa  Croce. 

The  Blues  hover  round  me  and  my  one  way  of 
destroying  the  Blues  was  to  fling  myself  into  steady 
work.  So  I  plunged  into  my  book,  or  rather  the  notes 
for  it  which  are  all  but  complete;  and  have  made 
such  way  in  the  work  that  I  think  I  can  clearly  promise 
Macmillan  the  MSS.  at  Christmas.  But  to  do  this— 
and  I  mean  to  do  it — I  must  renounce  the  Saturday 
and  all  its  works,  though  I  meant  to  flood  that  charm- 
ing periodical  with  lovely  "  middles,"  and  devote 
myself  every  morning  to  the  immortal,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
So  you  may  devote  your  sixpence  a  week,  my  dear 
Mrs.  a  Court,  to  the  philosophic  Spectator  with  perfect 
composure. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  DE  LA  PAIX,  FLORENCE, 
October  n,  1872. 

I  am  getting  so  behindhand,  dear  Freeman,  with 
your  letters  and  papers  that  I  had  better  devote 
this  letter  to  business.  In  the  first  place  1  have  to 
thank  you  very  heartily  for  both  the  "Ravenna"  and 
the  "  Romanesque  "  papers  ;  nothing  could  possibly  be 
clearer  or  more  convincingly  put  than  the  last.  The 
first,  though  the  more  delightful  of  the  two  to  me, 
strikes  me  on  re-reading  as  too  "allusive"  and  re- 
quiring too  much  previous  knowledge  for  even  such 
learned  readers  as  those  of  the  N.  British  Quarterly  / 
The  only  point  in  the  "  Romanesque  "  paper  at  which 
I  stuck  was  the  expression  of  feeling  on  your  part 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  331 

that  a  modern  Romanesque  building  was  an  absurdity. 
You  put  it  as  a  matter  of  feeling,  and  so  one  can't 
argue  on  it,  but  surely  there  is  nothing  ridiculous  in 
that  early  fifteenth  century  Romanesque  of  the  first 
Italian  Revival,  out  of  which  so  much  might  have 
come  but  for  the  later  "  classical "  movement.  I  re- 
member well  your  delight  at  an  arcade  of  it  at  Bologna, 
and  your  cry  "  What  might  not  these  Italians  have 
done  if  they  had  only  carried  on  their  own  style  ?  " 
Why  then  is  it  impossible  to  carry  it  on  ? 

Concerning  my  own  writing  or  non-writing ;  I 
brought  as  you  know  my  notes  out  here,  and  am 
writing  away  fast.  Since  the  Brookes  went  some  ten 
days  ago  I  have  done  from  the  end  of  the  Peasant 
Revolt  of  1381  to  the  end  of  the  "New  Learning" 
in  1520.  I  daresay  you  would  stare  to  see  seven 
pp.  devoted  to  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  fifteen  or 
sixteen  to  Colet,  Erasmus,  and  Tommy  More,  "  Great 
Tom,"  as  he  ought  to  be  called, — however,  so  it  is. 
I  think  this  section  of  mine  on  the  New  Learning, 
with  the  previous  ones  on  the  Peasant  Revolt  which 
was  really  an  account  of  the  whole  developement  of 
agriculture  and  landed  tenure  from  the  Conquest  to 
1381,  and  on  the  "Towns,"  by  far  the  best  things  I 
have  done  yet.  To  come  back  to  "  facts."  If  I  get 
along  as  I  am  doing  I  shall  have  done  my  Book  about 
Christmas  ;  and  shall  then  be  able  to  undertake  France. 
If  so,  I  shall  begin  the  Angevins  on  my  return  in 
May.  I  still  can't  decide  between  "  England  under 
its  French  Kings,"  which  would  let  in  Stivy,  and 
"under  its  Angevin  Kings"  or  "under  the  House  of 
Anjou,"  which  would  exclude  him.  Why  don't  you 
take  as  a  title  "English  History  in  the  Middle  Ages," 
and  take  it  in  one  volume  from  Billy  to  Barnet  ? 
Remember  that  the  whole  value  of  the  thing  for  boys 
and  children  will  lie  in  your  not  making  too  long  a 
story  of  it ;  and  I  am  packing  it  all  into  one  basket 
from  Hengist  to  Bobby  Lowe. 


332  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

I  shall  write  to  the  dear  old  boy.  I  am  so  sorry  to 
hear  he  has  been  ill.  As  to  Bryce  I  told  him  to  say 
when  he  stood  on  the  "  bridge  beneath  the  water " 
"  Cassarem  fortunasque "  and  he  would  get  over. 
But  there  ought  to  be  an  act  against  "  Bryce-wander- 
ings "  with  special  clauses  against  geysers  and  Alp- 
climbings.  I  simply  don't  believe  the  "Norman" 
story.  I  have  questioned  one  or  two  Norman  people 
I  have  met  of  late  years  very  closely  about  this  said 
"no  Frenchman  " —feeling,  and  they  utterly  deny  it. 
Do  you  remember  the  reply  of  the  farmer  to  you 
when  in  his  pride  at  being  a  Norman  you  said,  "  And 
no  Frenchman  " — his  sudden  outburst  of  "  French  " 
patriotism  ? 

Florence  is  not  very  bright  just  now,  for  we  have 
the  rains  on ;  but  the  weather  still  remains  pleasantly 
warm.  My  own  health  was  making  wonderful  progress, 
but  for  the  four  last  days,  whether  I  had  overworked 
or  caught  cold  somehow  I  don't  know,  I  have  fallen 
back  and  my  cough  has  been  more  troublesome.  Still 
when  I  hear  of  your  English  autumnal  weather,  I  hug 
myself  a  wee  bit  on  being  out  of  it.  Besides  my  Book 
I  am  doing  little  save  Florentine  reading,  for  the  most 
part  about  painters  and  sculptors  whom  I  want  to 
weave  into  my  notions  of  certain  periods  of  Florentine 
history.  For  whatever  you  may  make  of  England,  it 
is  absolute  madness  to  try  and  dissociate  the  "  social 
and  assthetic "  from  the  political  here.  And  I  must 
own  the  more  I  have  worked  and  thought  over  our 
own  story  as  a  whole — and  I  shall  always  thank  Little 
Book  for  making  me  do  this — the  more  its  political 
history  has  seemed  to  spring  out  of  and  be  moulded 
into  form  by  the  "  social  and  religious  "  history  you 
like  to  chaff  me  about.  You  see  I  shall  die  in  my 
sins  ! 

Did  you  send  me  any  Taunton  paper  with  the  tale 
of  your  doings  therein  ?  If  so  I  never  got  it.  Has 
anything  further  been  done  about  the  "Somersetshire 
History"  which  .Hunt  was  to  edit  and  wherein  we 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  333 

were  to  figure  at  the  tail  of  Sanford  and  Scarth  ?  I 
suppose  "  Italy  "  drove  it  out  of  Hunt's  head  as  Italy 
has  driven  many  things  out  of  many  heads.  Ah,  cara 
Italia !  I  am  afraid  she  takes  the  light  a  little  out  of 
other  lands  ;  to  me  our  own  history  has  seemed  a 
shade  narrow,  aldermannic,  unpoetic  ever  since  I 
crossed  the  Alps.  But  even  you,  Teuto-Teuton- 
nicorum,  yielded  to  the  witchery  of  Venice  and  found 
your  Capua  in  a  gondola.  Oh,  how  I  triumphed  on 
that  memorable  day  ! 

Good-bye  ;  remember   how  great  a  charity    letters 
are,  and  how  great  a  pleasure  your  letters  always  bring. 
— Ever  yours  affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Mrs.  a  Court 

HOTEL  D'ANGLETERRE,  ROME, 
November  8,  [1872]. 

Are  you  Scotch,  dear  Mrs.  a  Court,  or  does  some 
uncanny  gift  of  second  sight  run  in  your  blood  that 
you  alone  of  all  the  world  knew  I  was  in  Rome  ?  It  is 
only  a  flying  peep  of  a  few  days  ;  for  I  stayed  too  long 
at  Florence,  and  the  broken  weather  has  pinched  me,  so 
that  I  think  it  wiser  to  go  and  be  quiet  at  Capri  till  the 
winter  is  over  and  gone,  and  then  spend  the  spring 
here.  .  .  . 

Christian  Rome  (save  a  look  at  the  Sistine  and  the 
Loggia  of  Raphael)  I  left  utterly  alone,  to  wait  for  the 
spring.  But  heathen  Rome  is  another  matter.  It  is 
made  for  invalids.  It  is  purposely  arranged  that  they 
may  see  it  perfectly  from  their  carriages,  or  with  little 
walks  from  their  carriages  ;  and  all  the  dear  old  heathen 
things  seem  to  know  that  you  are  too  ill  to  bear  the 
streets  and  crowd,  and  so  lie  out  in  fields  and  vineyards 
and  fresh  air  and  hedges  and  unutterable  delights.  Of 
course  this  isn't  true  of  all,  for  instance  the  Pantheon ; 
but  it  is  true  of  Roman  Rome  as  a  whole,  and  this  alone 
gives  the  wandering  through  the  ruins  a  charm  which 
no  other  Italian  city  possesses.  Then,  too,  there  is  the 


334  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

charm  which  arises  from  the  immense  extent  to  which 
what  you  see  surpasses  your  expectations.  I  had  ex- 
pected a  great  deal,  but  what  I  expected  seems  ridiculous 
when  I  compare  it  with  what  I  found.  It  is  not  merely 
that  this  or  that  temple  or  Basilica  or  bath  is  beautiful 
or  colossal, — it  is  that  they  are  all  beautiful,  that,  with 
a  few  delicious  exceptions,  they  are  all  colossal,  and  that 
the  most  beautiful  and  colossal  of  all  are  jammed  up 
together  in  one  overpowering  mass  from  the  Capitol  to 
the  Colosseum,  that  exceeds  in  effect  anything  on  earth. 
I  hope  that  word  "jammed  "  does  not  shock  you,  but  it 
exactly  expresses  what  I  mean,  the  way  in  which  a 
perfect  crowd  of  huge  buildings,  each  of  which  could 
amaze  one,  are  flung  and  huddled  together  in  one 
narrow  street  that  can't  be  longer  and  is  only  half  as 
wide  as  St.  James's  Street  or  Piccadilly.  Yes,  I  believe 
it  is  about  a  fourth  longer. 

Then  too  I  had  heard  so  much  about  the  "  petty  " 
hills  of  Rome,  and  seen  such  jeers  at  their  military 
importance,  and  such  talks  of  going  up  them  without 
knowing  it,  that  when  I  saw  them  I  shouted  for  joy. 
They  are  hills,  well  denned,  with  steep  and  often  (as 
the  Palatine)  steeply  scarped  sides  which  a  stockade 
could  enable  a  New  Zealander  to  hold  against  a  host  of 
cockney  scorners  ;  and  they  are  good  big  spaces  too,— 
I  drove  round  the  Palatine,  and  found  it  quite  equal  to 
the  block  between  St.  James's  Street  and  the  Haymarket, 
Piccadilly,  and  Pall  Mall,  a  fair  site  for  a  respectable 
town  at  any  time. 

How  you  would  have  smiled  to  see  me  doing  pen- 
ance in  St.  Peter's  and  owning  myself  in  the  wrong  !  I 
went  prepared  with  all  sorts  of  charges  against  the  out- 
side, and  it  deserved  every  one  of  them.  So  too  I  had 
a  pocketful  of  faults  to  find  with  the  inside — until  I 
entered.  From  that  moment,  except  the  waste  of  the 
side  aisles,  I  could  see  none.  No  interior  of  a  great 
church  ever  so  satisfied  all  my  conditions  of  taste  before. 
It  conveyed  the  impression  of  its  size,  and  yet  its  size 
only  lent  grandeur  to  its  beauty  ;  and,  seen  as  I  saw  it, 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  335 

full  of  light  and  colour,  there  was  a  pervading  joy  and 
lightsomeness  amidst  all  its  peaceful  quiet  which  I  have 
never  felt  elsewhere.  It  was  such  a  sweet  bit  of  irony, 
this  finding  in  the  chief  church  of  what  people  call  dark 
bigotry  and  obscure  mysteries  the  brightest  and  least 
mysterious  Christian  sanctuary  ever  seen. 

Good-bye,  give  my  love  to  that  wise  creature  whom 
in  a  spirit  of  irony  you  call  Baby.  I  suppose  she  has 
another  Rosso  and  another  "friend." — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  DE  RUSSIE,  NAPLES, 
Tuesday,  November  12,  1872. 

I  have  been  reading  your  "  Sketch,"  dear  Freeman, 
to-night  with  an  admiration  that  grows  the  more  the 
farther  I  read.  It  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  masterly 
things  you  have  ever  done.  I  intend  to  keep  it  as  a 
model  before  me  in  the  little  "  France,"  but  it  is  very 
very  hard  to  be  simple,  to  tell  nothing  but  what  needs 
to  be  told,  and  to  tell  it  in  the  plainest  and  most  straight- 
forward way.  However,  I  have  learnt  a  good  many 
things  from  you  in  my  lifetime,  and  I  will  try  to  learn 
that.  As  yet  (I  have  read  up  to  Saxon  Emperors  now) 
you  have  got  quite  free  from  what  I  used  to  think  your 
besetting  sins, — crowding  and  allusiveness  ;  the  book 
reads  easily,  and  yet  simple  as  it  is  and  looks  it  is  rich 
enough  in  suggestions  to  furnish  every  professor  in 
England  with  pegs  to  hang  hundreds  of  lectures  on. 

I  ought  to  have  sent  the  notice  of  it  to  S.  R.  ere 
now,  but  it  had  hardly  reached  Florence  when  the  long 
rains  and  the  sudden  change  to  cold  threw  me  back  ;  and 
after  a  vain  struggle  against  the  Fates  I  had  to  make 
up  my  mind  to  change  all  my  plans,  especially  that  of  a 
winter  at  Rome — which  I  find  I  am  still  too  susceptible 
of  cold  to  risk, — and  to  resolve  on  taking  refuge  for  the 
three  winter  months  from  the  middle  of  November  to 
the  middle  of  February  in  Capri,  like  Tiberius.  I  was 


336  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

wretchedly  ill  and  depressed  during  the  few  days  I  was 
able  to  spend  at  Rome  ;  but  so  long  as  I  could  see  it  all 
illness  and  depression  seemed  to  flee  away.  I  thought 
I  brought  a  pretty  big  anticipation  of  the  Eternal  City 
with  me,  but  big  as  it  was  it  shrivelled  before  the  reality. 
It  is  simply  impossible  to  conceive  what  Rome  is  from 
books  or  pictures  or  plans.  To  understand  it  one  must 
see  it. 

This  looks  like  tall  talk  in  a  man  who  only  ran 
through  Rome,  "  more  Americano"  in  three  or  four 
days  ;  but  if  one  is  determined  to  leave  all  Christian 
things  from  the  Catacombs  down  to  Pope  Pius's 
wonderful  beadles  to  be  seen  in  the  spring,  and  if  one 
sticks  simply  to  the  Heathen  things,  one  can  get  a  much 
truer  and  grander  notion  of  Rome  in  a  few  days,  than 
would  be  possible  of  many  smaller  cities.  In  the  first 
place,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  things  like  the  Pan- 
theon Old  Rome  lies  by  itself  away  from  the  new. 
You  haven't  to  go  hunting  up  and  down  streets  to 
discover  a  temple  here  or  a  basilica  there.  Literally,  you 
"  go  out  into  the  wilderness  to  see."  You  get  out  of  the 
streets  and  away  from  the  people,  and  there  lonely  and 
silent  stands  Rome.  Your  eye  wanders  from  one  great 
bit  of  Heathendom  to  another,  but  there  is  nothing  else 
— nothing  to  break  the  one  single  impression  of  Rome. 
Then,  again,  the  bulk  of  what  one  sees  lies  massed 
together  in  a  way  I  never  dreamt  of.  It  is  only  a  pistol- 
shot's  distance  from  the  Capitol  to  the  Colosseum. 
The  space  between  the  Palatine  and  the  Esquiline,  from 
the  one  to  the  other  of  these  two  points  is  in  its  broadest 
part,  the  Forum,  only  a  good  stonethrow  broad,  and 
elsewhere  a  mere  broad  street.  And  yet  into  this  space 
are  crowded,  huddled,  smashed  together  (for  that  is  the 
impression  it  gives  me)  a  mob  of  buildings  each 
colossal  and  each  identified  with  some  great  thing  or 
man.  On  a  map  one  doesn't  realise  this,  but  seen  on 
the  spot  it  is  the  impression  which  tells  most,  I  think, 
this  sense  of  the  crowd  of  great  things  in  front,  behind, 
and  on  every  side  of  one.  If  one  tries,  as  I  tried  stand- 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  337 

ing  there  to  restore  the  buildings  themselves,  and  then 
to  stick  into  their  intervals  the  pillars  and  statues  one 
knows  were  there,  one  can  only  conceive  the  Forum  as 
a  host  of  huge  buildings  in  the  narrow  spaces  between 
which  the  Roman  crowd  passed  in  little  streamlets  of  life. 
Of  course  there  are  great  things  outside  this  heart 
of  Rome,  but  here  begins  a  new  charm  for  people  as 
tired  and  weak  as  I  was  when  I  stayed  there.  You  are 
not  poking  about  a  musty  old  town.  You  are  out  in 
the  fields.  You  drive  to  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  for 
instance,  through  vineyards  and  along  a  pleasant  country 
lane  with  roses  nodding  at  you  in  the  hedgerows. 
Another  country  lane  takes  you  to  the  Baths  of  Titus. 
And  when  you  climb  on  the  big  fragments  of  brick- 
work you  may  see  the  fields  all  round  you,  and  the  white 
oxen  toiling  along  with  their  heavy  yoke  to  the  far-off 
town. 

Then,  too  (you  see  in  what  a  fitful  way  I  am 
gabbling),  you  get  your  Rome.  The  faith  of  one's  youth 
is  restored.  I  don't  mean  "  sensu  Parkeriensi,"  or  that 
one  gets  a  Fides  Romulea  or  a  Fides  Lupina,  but  that 
one  again  believes  in  the  Hills.  I  think  it  was  Keightley 
who  first  put  into  my  poor  little  head  when  I  was  a  boy 
that  the  Hills  were  mere  ups  and  downs  like  a  London 
street,  and  that  though  you  might  "  recreate  them  by 
imagination,"  etc.  etc.  I  remember  Millard  scoffing  in 
class  about  the  Tarpeian  rock  as  a  "  fair  jump  "  and  so 
on.  And  so  the  moment  I  got  my  eyes  off  the  Forum 
I  looked  for  the  Hills.  And  there  they  were.  If 
Millard  tried  his  fair  jump  from  the  Capitol  all  the 
Alpine  Clubmen  in  the  world  would  never  "  set  Humpty 
Dumpty  up  again."  And  as  to  Palatine  it  was  just  the 
sort  of  Hill  the  story  needs, — not  Snowdon  or  Dwahelg 
—no,  I  cant  spell  it,  that  ungodly  mountain  in  India, — 
but  a  large  square  plateau  with  steep  escarped  sides, 
which,  palisaded  and  with  Maoris  defending  the  stock- 
ade (say  your  friend  Harold)  would  be  a  tough 
nut  to  crack.  To  the  opposite  rise  of  the  Esquiline  is 
still  a  steep  pull  —  and  as  to  the  Pincian  my  cough 

z 


338  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

used  to  tell  me  that  was  a  good  pitch  anyhow.  And  so 
I  have  got  a  "  Fides  Collina  "  of  a  very  firm  sort  back 
again. 

I  was  too  weak  to  undertake  going  over  the  Palatine 
and  its  excavations ;  so  I  left  that  to  the  spring  and 
quietly  drove  round  it.  All  the  way  round  there  are 
the  same  steep  sides, — it  is  a  block  about  as  big  as  the 
space  between  St.  James's  St.  and  the  Haymarket  with 
Pall  Mall  and  Piccadilly  for  the  other  two  sides.  And 
all  round  as  you  go  without  interruption  there  tower 
above  you  mass  after  mass  of  brickwork,  sometimes 
towers  or  huge  arches,  or  here  a  square  piece  of  wall, 
but  for  the  most  part  formless  and  vast.  I  couldn't 
have  conceived  the  impression  that  this  continuous 
multitude  of  huge  fragments  made — probably  the  im- 
pression was  even  grander  than  that  which  the  Palace  of 
the  Cassars  would  have  of  itself  created,  and  yet  what 
manner  of  thing  must  this  Palace  of  the  Cassars  have 
been  which  Nero  found  too  little  to  live  in ! 

Thursday^  November  14. — I  am  afraid  you  will  hate 
me  as  a  Parker  Redivivus  if  I  bore  you  any  more  with 
Rome  or  my  visits  to  SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  the  latter 
whereof  (rebuilt  as  it  is)  is  the  most  wonderful  church 
in  point  of  space-effect  (if  I  may  coin  the  word)  I  ever 
saw,  and  rebuilt  or  no,  one  of  the  grandest  buildings  I 
ever  stood  in.  It  stands  away  in  the  fields  by  itself  in 
our  Apollinaris-in-Classe  fashion.  But  Rome  is  gone 
and  the  sunshine  is  gone,  and  in  place  thereof  behold 
Naples  and  the  rain !  I  stood  a  month  of  rain  at 
Florence,  October  being  the  "rainy  season"  in  Tuscany 
this  year  ;  but  November  turns  out  to  be  the  "  rainy 
season  "  for  the  South,  so  I  am  in  for  another  month. 
Patientia  !  It  is  all  most  English  !  But  then  this  is 
the  1 2th  of  November,  and  I  am  writing  at  eight  in  the 
evening  in  my  room  without  a  fire  and  yet  as  warm  as 
a  toast.  Ah,  you  who  never  shiver !  You  little  know 
what  warmth  is  to  poor  shivery  little  me !  Capri,  my 
home  for  the  winter,  lies  "  across  the  wave  "  some  few 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY" 


339 


miles  —  I  see  it  from  my  window  and  likewise  the 
steamer  that  goes  to  it,  but  when  that  steamer  goes  to 
that  island  I  know  not.  I  am  told  it  goes  every  day, 
which  seems  hopeful ;  then  that  it  has  not  gone  for 
more  than  a  week,  which  brings  despair  ;  then  that  it 
starts  only  if  it  is  fine  weather  ;  and  then  that  the 
weather  is  no  good  unless  there  are  twenty  passengers 
— and  so  on.  I  think  the  Boat  must  belong  to  the 
world  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Unconditioned.  It 
passes  human  understanding  and  requires  faith.  I 
believe  ("because  it  is  impossible")  that  I  shall  get  to 
Capri.  When  I  do,  my  address  will  be 

HOTEL  QUISISANA, 

ISOLA  DI  CAPRI, 
NAPOLI, 

which  being  interpreted  means  the  "  Here-you-get- 
well  Hotel,"  which  is  cheering  and  instructive. 

Good-bye. — Ever  thine,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  ISOLA  DI  CAPRI, 
December  30,  '72. 

[This  letter  refers  to  the  Historic  Course  for  Schools ', 
edited  by  Freeman.  Green  intended  to  write  upon 
France,  but  ultimately  gave  up  the  plan.] 

By  vast  ill  luck,  my  dear  Freeman,  Macmillan  sent 
all  my  latter-tide  letters  and  papers  not  to  "  Poste 
Restante "  at  Florence  (whither  I  wrote),  but  to  my 
Hotel — which  has  only  now  sent  them  on.  I  send  back 
the  proofs  probably  too  late,  but  in  any  case  I  had 
better  send  them.  The  first  sheets  of  "  Italy"  have  never 
reached  me — I  send  the  only  two  which  have.  Sismondi 
is  followed  servilely  and  blindly  throughout,  and  a 
foundation  is  laid  on  which  let  no  man  build.  My 
notes  in  the  margin  are  for  you,  not  for  the  gentleman 
who  "  wants  no  help  in  his  history  "  such  as  poor  I  am 
very  glad  to  get  from  any  quarter.  No  doubt  you 
have  already  put  a  good  deal  right,  but  I  have  said  my 
say  nevertheless,  as  you  bade  me  do. 


340  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

As  to  the  general  plan  I  again  deplore — as  I  did 
in  the  other  case — the  entire  exclusion  of  all  stories, 
anecdotes,  or  anything  which  by  any  possibility  can 
enliven  the  tale.  As  it  stands  the  book  is  utterly 
unreadable.  Of  course  this  is  a  matter  which  rests 
wholly  with  you,  but  I  do  hope  you  will  consider 
whether  absolute  dryness  and  unreadableness  is  a  sine 
qua  non  in  educational  books.  The  style,  too,  is  terrible. 
The  "  Wheeler's  Analyses  "  of  my  young  days  were 
light  reading  to  these  handbooks. 

As  to  the  "  Scotland  "  it  improves  wonderfully  as  it 
gets  on — the  James  I.  part  is  very  nicely  done — but 
the  opening  is  terrible.  I  hope  you  will  get  the  first 
sheet  wholly  re-written — it  is  absolutely  ungrammatical, 
unintelligible,  and  un- every  thing.  But  the  War  of 
Independence  is  very  fairly  and  clearly  put,  save  one 
or  two  sentences  which  I  have  marked  ;  and  what 
follows  is  clearly  and  simply  told.  Only  here  again — 
there  isn't  a  story — not  a  single  one — nor  a  character- 
istic speech — nor  the  "  picter  "  of  anybody.  Did  you 
issue  instructions  to  your  Harem  strictly  forbidding 
the  Beautiful  and  the  Interesting  ? 

The  "  Germany  "  I  won't  meddle  with,  as  it  is  in 
your-and-Ward's-hands.  But  I  note  with  wonder  that 
it  beginneth  before  the  Beginning  of  Things.  I  thought 
all  the  Wee  Works  were  to  start  from  888,  and  lo,  I 
behold  Arminius  and  a  host  of  prehistoric  critters  !  I 
am  sure  your  original  plan  was  the  right  one,  and  I  am 
sorry  you  haven't  stuck  to  it,  and  warned  your  Wee 
sub-workers  to  stick  to  it.  One  sub-worker  at  any 
rate  doth  hereby  strike  against  any  "overtime"  before 
988.  I  think  a  page  of  distant  allusion  will  do  for  all 
before  in  the  Little  France.  Likewise  I  wont  divide 
by  Kings,  a  system  whereby  History  is  made  Tory 
unawares  and  infants  are  made  to  hate  History.  .  .  . 

This  is  too  much  of  a  business  letter  to  be  turned 
into  a  very-letter,  so  I  won't  tell  you  of  our  Capri 
jinks  at  Christmas,  of  crackers  in  the  Piazza  and  big 
guns  roaring  from  the  cliffs — and  day  after  day  of 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  341 

glorious  sunshine  which  makes  Christmastide  the  j oiliest 
thing  out.  You  poor  drenched  Englishry  !  Think  ! 
To-day  is  December  30.  I  was  out  at  eight  this 
morning  on  the  balcony  sunning  myself  without  a 
hat  (vich  I've  no  hair  on  the  top  of  my  head  in  the 
place  where  the  hair  ought  to  grow,  you  know  !) — I 
wrote  this  morning  in  the  garden  till  the  sun  waxed 
too  hot  and  drove  me  in  for  shade.  I  clomb  this 
afternoon  unto  a  high  hill  and  dug  out  bits  of  marble, 
old  pots,  and  painted  stucco  from  a  villa  of  old  Tib. 
Imp.  whence  I  looked,  on  the  one  hand  unto  Paestum, 
and  on  the  other  unto  Misenum  ;  and  then  being  done 
with  heat  lay  down  and  took  a  siesta  among  the 
myrtles,  gathered  a  little  posy  of  anemones  and  some 
pretty  blue  flowers  I  don't  know  the  name  of,  came 
home  and  am  writing  in  my  room  at  8  P.M.  without  a 
touch  of  cold  or  even  chill,  or  the  dream  of  a  fire. 
When  winter  is  to  come  I  know  not,  but  we  can't  get 
within  sight  of  him  here  as  yet.  Imperial  history  is  in 
a  bad  way  in  Capri.  As  I  grubbed  for  old  pots  an  old 
woman  stopped  and  said,  "  Ecco !  a  palace  of  Tiwberio ! " 
"  And  who  was  Timberio  ? "  I  asked  with  subtlety. 
"  Timberio  was  a  Devil,"  she  answered  at  once,  "  but 
he  is  dead  and  buried."  This  was  hopeful  for  a  Devil, 
so  I  said  I  would  have  a  mass  said  to  get  him  out  of 
Purgatory.  But  the  aged  dogmatist  shook  her  head. 
"  When  Christians  die,"  she  said,  "  they  go  to  Pur- 
gatory— but  when  Devils  die  they  go  to  Hell."  So 
I  am  afraid  there  is  no  doing  anything  for  "Timberio." 
I  am  getting  on  with  my  Italian  bravely,  being  tired  of 
being  dumb,  and  the  Caprese  maidens  being  very 
talkative,  very  patient  of  blunders,  and  —  mighty 
pretty ! 

Felice  sera,  Signor  !  J.  R.  GREEN. 

Your  "  Saarburg  "  arrove  with  the  other  derelicts — 
very  jolly  indeed. 


342  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 


To  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  ISOLA  DI  CAPRI, 
January  15,  1873. 

I  have  just  been  reading  over  Humphry's  last 
letter  again,  dear  Mary,  and  fell  so  terribly  a-longing 
for  the  villa  which  I  have  never  seen,  the  new  semi- 
grand  "  by  Kaps,"  the  cat  and  the  china,  the  long 
winter  evenings  and  chats  among  the  knick-knackeries, 
that  I  had  to  rush  out  on  to  the  hillside  and  bask 
myself  into  content  in  the  sunshine.  It  is  worrying, 
I  know,  to  be  always  harping  on  the  sunshine  ;  but 
really  it  is  one's  life  here,  the  one  great  daily  marvel 
and  daily  joy,  this  uninterrupted  succession  of  hot 
summer  days  which  drive  one  in  sometimes  for  shade, 
and  which  make  one  sit  down — as  I  did  this  after- 
noon— every  half  hour  to  wipe  one's  brow  and  mutter 
"very  hot,"  as  one  might  in  the  hottest  August  of 
England.  I  keep  a  sun-diary,  and  I  find  that  since 
the  1 5th  of  December,  i.e.  during  a  whole  month  we 
have  had  only  two  cloudy  days,  and  of  those  one  was 
quite  warm,  nor  has  there  been  a  drop  of  rain.  The 
days  have  been  blue,  cloudless,  summer  days ;  much  of 
the  fine  blue  owing  no  doubt  to  a  slight  north  wind, 
but  that  matters  nothing  here  as  we  are  wholly  sheltered 
on  one  side  of  the  island  from  every  wind  but  the 
South.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  Island  so  greatly 
preferable  as  a  winter  station  to  the  Riviera,  where 
the  sunshine  is  chequered  with  biting  east  and  south- 
east winds  of  truly  English  quality,  especially  in 
March.  I  shall  certainly  spend  March  here — it  is 
something  to  have  found  a  place  where  one  can  live 
unscourged  by  Kingsley's  "  wind  of  God." 

I  wonder  whether  Capri  will  equal  the  Riviera  in 
its  spring -burst  of  flowers  ?  As  yet  we  have  only 
plenty  of  anemones,  and  a  beautiful  blue  flower  on 
the  hills  whose  name  I  don't  know,  and  certain 
crocuses  in  a  precipitous  spot  I  haven't  ventured  to. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  343 

I  shall  be  almost  sorry,  I  think,  if  I  do  find  anything 
anywhere  to  equal  that  sight  of  beautiful  wonder,  the 
sudden  flushing  of  terrace  after  terrace  into  bright 
banks  of  colour  which  will  always  be  associated  in  my 
mind  with  S.  Remo. 

Of  course  I  am  wonderfully  well — in  other  words 
it  is  sunshine — but  one  thing  is  becoming  clearer  and 
clearer  to  me,  and  that  is  that  I  have  got  to  the  end 
of  my  improvement  tether.  I  am  a  different  fellow 
to  what  I  was  even  a  year  ago  ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
never  be  much  better  than  I  am,  and  that  I  must  lay 
aside  all  hope  of  what  people  call  "  a  cure."  Increased 
strength  seems  to  bring  little  ability  to  face  the  least 
cold,  the  least  anxiety  or  over-exertion.  It  is  easier 
than  it  was  of  old  to  pick  myself  up,  but  I  run  down 
just  as  fast  as  I  ever  did.  I  should  have  thought  little 
of  this  even  a  year  ago  ;  but  like  a  fool  I  had  begun 
to  nurse  silly  hopes  of  "  being  well  again,"  and  doing 
as  other  folk  do,  and  now  I  find  it  a  little  hard  to 
face  the  truth — the  truth  that  I  must  resign  myself  if 
I  live  to  the  life  of  an  invalid — the  (illegible'}  that 
is  so  out  of  harmony  with  my  natural  temper.  I  don't 
grumble — for  after  all  such  a  life  is  no  obstacle  to 
quiet  writing,  and  may  perhaps  lead  one  to  a  truer 
end  of  life  than  one  had  planned.  But  sometimes 
there  comes  on  me  a  rebellion  against  the  quiet  of  the 
student  life,  a  rush  of  energy  and  longing  to  "  battle," 
and  then  it  is  hard  to  beat  one's  wings  against  the 
cage  the  Fates  have  made  for  one. 

I  wonder  whether  it  will  end  in  my  settling  down 
in  some  sunny  Italian  nook,  in  this  Capri  for  example  ? 
If  I  can  never  hope  to  "  spend  a  winter  in  England," 
which  seems  likely  enough,  if  I  can  never  return  till 
the  end  of  May,  and  must  flit  again  at  the  close  of 
September — would  it  not  be  better  to  give  up  the 
notion  of  an  "  English  home "  altogether,  and  look 
on  England  only  as  a  summer  holiday  run  ?  This  is 
what  my  thoughts  run  on,  and  the  more  so  because 
with  my  books  in  England  I  am  so  terribly  hampered 


344  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

in  writing.  I  want  to  bring  home  my  "  Little  Book  " 
finished,  and  then  after  "  Little  France,"  which  will 
take  a  couple  of  months  I  suppose,  to  plunge  fairly 
into  the  Angevins.  But  the  "  Angevins "  want  a 
library  at  one's  elbow,  and  in  a  month  or  so  after 
beginning  them  would  come  the  order  to  depart.  I 
am  very,  very  puzzled  ;  how  I  wish  I  had  married 
long  ago,  before  it  was  cowardly  to  think  of  marrying 
as  it  is  now  I  take  it.  One  has  no  right  to  ask  a 
woman  to  tie  herself  to  a  fellow  who  must  live  in 
sunshine.  The  artists  here  have  a  way  of  marrying 
Caprese  donkey-girls  and  the  like,  and  perhaps  I  might 
aspire  to  a  donkey-girl.  As  to  beauty  she  would  be 
perfect.  I  know  half  a  dozen  donkey-girls  here  who 
are  more  beautiful  than  any  Englishwoman  I  ever  saw. 
I  wish  you  and  other  people  hadn't  spoilt  me  for 
marrying  with  donkey-girls,  and  filled  me  with  dreams 
of  "cosy  chats"  and  pretty  knick-knackeries  and  a 
grand  piano  "  by  Kaps." 

The  young  parroco  comes  to  me  to-night  to 
begin  my  Italian  lessons.  I  am  curious  to  know  him, 
for  he  is  evidently  an  active  fellow — a  vigorous  ultra- 
montane who  has  forced  an  "  Infallibility  "  catechism 
into  the  School  in  spite  of  the  schoolmistress,  who  by- 
the-bye  told  me — "  I  believe  not  in  God,  I  believe  in 
Matter," — a  reformer  who  has  so  roused  the  wrath 
of  the  easygoing  old  Canons  that  on  St.  Stephen's 
Day  they  set  on  him  with  the  big  candles  in  the 
Sacristy  vowing  they  "would  make  a  St.  Stephen  of 
him,"  has  roused  the  wrath  of  the  artists  by  refusing 
to  give  absolution  to  any  girl  who  sits  as  a  model, 
and  the  wrath  of  the  island  at  large  by  making  war  on 
the  Tarantella,  but  with  all  this  has  taught  himself 
English,  has  a  good  library  of  English  Tauchnitzes, 
and  is  the  only  man  in  the  island  who  doesn't  rest  on 
far  niente  and  the  dolcezza  thereof. 

He  hasnt  put  down  the  Tarantella,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  born  in  the  people,  and  that  the 
moment  you  sing  or  dance  off  they  go  in  the  prettiest, 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  345 

most  bewitching  dance  the  sun  ever  shone  on.  It  is 
amusing  to  see  the  little  ones  begin,  and  then  the  spell 
spread  to  the  bronzed  fisherman  looking  on  who 
suddenly  flings  up  his  arms,  and  bounds  lightly  as  air 
over  the  stalwart  "  Costanza,"  who  puts  down  her 
great  basket  from  her  head  and  sways  from  side  to 
side  in  that  indescribable  way,  and  then  the  old  women 
begin  to  clap  their  hands,  and  the  old  men  to  drum 
in  tune  on  the  ground,  and  every  one  to  laugh,  to  sing, 
to  dance,  and  so  the  world  goes  round.  A  buon 
genti  these  Caprese  —  as  they  always  call  themselves, 
always  ready  for  a  joke,  a  chat,  a  halfpenny,  liking 
best  people  who  laugh  with  them,  ask  after  their 
boys'  schooling,  and  carry  out  the  doctrine  of  equality 
in  the  practical  Italian  fashion. 

Good-bye. — Yours  affectionately,  J.  R.  G. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  ISOLA  DI  CAPRI, 
February  7,  1873. 

I  am  afraid  from  what  you  say,  dear  Freeman,  that 
I  was  a  good  deal  more  "  cocky  "  in  my  notes  on  the 
proofs  than  I  had  meant  to  be.  The  truth  is  one 
writes — at  least  1  write  very  often  in  a  sort  of  talkee- 
talkee  way,  with  all  the  brusque  dogmatism  of  ordinary 
chat,  without  recollecting  how  very  much  more  brusque 
and  dogmatic  words  look  on  paper  than  when  they 
have  the  living  face  and  voice  to  serve  as  a  running 
comment  on  them.  But  of  course — as  you  took  the 
matter — I  only  meant  them  as  suggestions,  and  very 
hasty  suggestions,  and  I  quite  expected  that  you  would 
find  some  of  them  wrong  and  others  useless.  But 
for  any  "  needless  fierceness  "  I  hereby  do  penance  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes.  Moreover  I  wrap  myself  in  white 
sheets  of  fancy,  and  hold  tapers  of  imagination  for 
my  silence  about  your  "  grandis  epistola,"  with  its 
enclosure  from  Miss  Freeman.  I  thought  I  had 
mentioned  in  what  a  strange  fashion,  and  after  what 


346  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

strange  delays  they  reached  me.     Still  they  reached  me 
to  my  delight. 

As  to  the  Exeter  matter  I  am  very  glad  of  the 
meeting  there,  and  still  gladder  of  the  resolve  to  do  real 
work  instead  of  the  hithering-and-thithering  which  has 
gone  on  hitherto.  And  I  needn't  say  how  tempted  I 
am  by  such  a  subject  as  the  municipal  history  of 
Exeter.  Exeter  and  Bristol  are  almost  the  only 
English  instances  I  know  where  you  have  the  difficulties 
with  feudal  lords  which  were  so  common  elsewhere  ; 
I  suppose  because  in  the  western  and  south-western 
marches  alone  did  you  get  lords  of  a  foreign  type 
and  bigness,  and  also  towns  of  a  bigness  to  resist  them. 
But  I  don't  like  doing  what  I  have  so  often  done, 
undertake  what  I  can't  perform  ;  and  in  the  performance 
of  such  an  engagement  as  this  there  are  many  diffi- 
culties. I  don't  know  whether  I  shall  be  forced  out  of 
England  again  for  the  winter.  My  health  is  far 
better,  but  still  I  acquire  no  power  of  resisting  cold, 
and  so  Clark  may  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  must 
again  run  off  at  the  beginning  of  October.  The 
meeting  would  probably  take  place  before  this,  but 
with  only  some  four  or  five  months  in  England  I 
should  have  no  time  for  "  fancy-work."  I  shall  have 
to  put  Little  Book  through  the  press,  and  to  make  up 
certain  "  vacant  spaces "  which  I  can't  for  want  of 
books  fill  in  here  during  the  process.  Then  there  is 
the  Little  France.  And  then — if  there  remains  any 
time  over  —  I  want  to  collect  for  my  Angevins  and 
take  out  my  materials  with  what  I  have  already  in  my 
notebooks  for  putting  together  in  the  coming  winter. 
You  see  this  is  no  difficulty  of  my  making,  but  of 
"  Nature's,"  and  if  I  am  again  to  be  an  exile  I  see 
little  chance  of  an  "  Exeter "  paper.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  Clark  (as  I  still  hope)  thinks  I  may  venture 
to  try  an  English  winter — say,  at  Bournemouth — there 
would  be  no  difficulty.  But  in  any  case  I  can  give 
no  final  answer  till  I  return  to  England,  and  this  I 
don't  intend  doing  till  the  end  of  May. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  347 

I  shall  probably  remain  here  till  the  March  winds 
have  done  their  blowing,  and  then  spend  a  month  or  so 
in  Rome,  jogging  slowly  home  from  thence  by  Perugia 
and  Assisi,  stopping  at  Florence  for  a  peep  at  Lucca 
and  re-peep  at  Pisa,  and  then  by  Parma,  Modena,  and 
Pavia,  jogging  along  to  Milan.  Oh,  how  I  wish  you 
dear  folk  in  England  would  take  wing  and  flit  over  the 
Alps  so  that  I  might  have  you  in  the  sunshine  and  never 
need  tread  Fog-and-Freedom-Land  again.  Why  on 
earth  did  the  Teutons  get  the  wrong  side  of  the  Alps 
when  they  might  just  as  well  have  got  the  right  ?  I  wish 
I  had  been  with  them, — say  when  they  were  on  the 
Caspian,  looking  in  their  Baedekers  for  the  route  to  the 
West. 

It's  very  odd  here  to  note  the  Greek  traces  not  only 
on  the  physique  but  on  the  traditions  of  the  island. 
There  is  an  old  church  here, — up  on  Anacapri, — which 
the  priests  call  by  some  saintly  name,  but  the  people 
know  as  "  the  old  church  di  Constantinopoli."  Con- 
stantine  is  a  common  boy's  name, — Costanzo  being  the 
patron  saint  of  Capri  and  Constantine  being  recognized 
as  "  little  Costanzo."  So  too  one  feels  the  touch  of 
the  East  in  the  churches  with  their  domes,  not  merely 
central  domes,  but  every  bay  rising  domically, — and  in 
the  house-roofs  which  are  thoroughly  oriental  and  give 
the  town  seen  from  above  a  look  of  Jerusalem.  They 
vault  in  an  odd  but  effective  way,  putting  first  a  rough 
mould  of  wood,  and  then  piling  over  it  small  rough 
stones  in  a  mash  of  mortar.  Then  they  beat  and 
trample  the  stones  in,  jamming  them  together  with 
great  hammers  till  the  mortar  sets  and  the  whole  mass 
becomes  one  stone  from  wall  to  wall.  They  leave  it  a 
long  time  to  dry,  but  the  result  is  a  perfectly  good 
strong  vault,  and  of  course  a  very  cheap  one.  I  noticed 
that  all  the  vaulting  of  the  Roman  palace  of  Tiberius 
had  been  done  in  this  way,  and  horribly  as  it  has  been 
pulled  about,  it  is  quite  firm  and  solid  still.  Why 
wouldn't  this  do  in  England,  for  country  churches,  and 
for  institutions  where  the  risk  of  fire  is  great  ? 


348  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Another  odd  thing  about  Capri  is  its  wonderful 
cheapness.  I  could  take  a  comfortable  house  here, 
keep  two  good  servants,  have  a  pleasant  garden,  and 
spend  under  £200  a  year.  One  of  the  inns  here  gives 
you  a  good  room,  board,  lights,  for  six  francs  a  day, 
which  at  the  present  rate  of  paper  about  equals  four 
shillings.  They  apologised  to  me  for  having  risen  their 
rate, — it  was  till  this  year  five  francs  !  Even  here  with 
a  really  fine  room,  southern  aspect,  and  meat  three  times 
a  day,  I  am  only  paying  9  francs  50  per  diem.  I  was 
offered  a  flat  of  five  rooms  in  the  best  situation  for  ^13 
per  annum,  and  found  that  my  servant  would  count 
herself  rich  if  I  gave  her  board  and  I  o  francs  a  month, 
about  8s.  If  Clark  won't  let  me  settle  in  England,  I 
really  think  I  shall  take  off  bag  and  baggage,  take  a 
little  house  here,  and  simply  look  on  England  as  a  place 
for  a  holiday  run  in  the  summer.  The  summer  here  is 
more  tolerable  than  elsewhere  in  South  Italy,  as  there  is 
a  pleasant  sea-breeze  which  always  gets  up  at  about  ten 
in  the  morning  and  cools  the  air. 

But  don't  think  I  am  getting  "  Italianate,"  which 
according  to  Ascham  is  pretty  much  the  same  as  "a 
devil  incarnate."  In  some  ways  I  think  being  far  away 
makes  one  fairer  to  England  than  when  one  is  at  home 
and  worried  with  all  the  pettiness  and  ignorance,  "  dis- 
cussions over  damnatory  clauses "  and  the  like,  and 
inclined  to  believe  the  Pall  Mall  and  the  groaners 
generally  about  the  "  contempt  for  England  on  the 
Continent."  What  one  really  sees  on  the  Continent, 
if  one  likes  to  learn  from  their  statesmen  and  journals 
instead  of  from  the  chatter  of  table  d'hotes^  is  the 
immense  influence  for  good  which  England  is  just  now 
wielding.  I  see  Mr.  Fish  tells  Spain  to  compare  Eng- 
land's colonial  policy  with  her  own  if  she  wants  to 
know  how  to  manage  a  colony.  So  in  Germany 
"  English  Constitutionalism  "  is  getting  too  hard  even 
for  Bismarck,  as  his  remarkable  speech  about  ministerial 
responsibility  showed.  It  was  the  argument  from 
England  alone  which  he  cared  to  answer.  So  here  the 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  349 

influence  of  France  seems  to  have  faded  away, — it  is 
English  order,  English  justice,  English  self-government 
that  Italians  are  talking  about  as  a  model  for  their  own. 
You  were  vexed  (as  were  the  best  Italians)  with  all 
the  fuss  here  about  Napoleon.  It  was  not  of  course  so 
inexcusable  as  the  ridiculous  maundering  at  home.  The 
real  truth  is  that  Italians  remember  a  good  deal  Louis' 
early  Carbonaro  days  and  his  brother's  death  in  their 
cause.  They  believe  (I  think  rightly)  that  mixed  with 
a  vast  deal  of  selfish  aim  there  was  a  real  kindliness  for 
Italy  in  his  mind  in  the  '59  business  ;  that  his  "  from  the 
Alps  to  the  Adriatic  "  was  a  real  thought  and  a  good  one, 
though  the  Devil  came  in  after  Solferino  and  drove  it 

O 

out.  Moreover  they  feel  that  whether  he  willed  it  or 
no,  '59  was  the  beginning  of  the  New  Italy.  All  this 
vapouring  too  of  the  French  Legislature  and  of  Thiers 
against  Italian  Unity  shows  them  that  no  other  French 
ruler  could  have  done  so  much  for  them  as  Napoleon 
did, — that  no  other  French  ruler  who  had  the  power 
he  had  would  have  tolerated  a  united  Italy  at  all.  In 
spite  of  Villafranca  and  the  intrigues  in  Tuscany  and  the 
Gae'ta  business  and  Rome  and  Mentone  I  do  think  the 
Emperor's  Italian  side  was  his  best  side.  Add  to  this  a 
really  noble  trait  in  the  Italian  character  which  perhaps 
explains  more  than  all  those  reasons.  They  have  an 
immense  gratitude  to  all  who  in  any  way  aided  them 
in  their  bad  days.  When  Johnny  Russell  came  to  S. 
Remo  they  wanted  to  put  up  triumphal  arches.  "  He 
was  a  friend  when  we  had  few  friends."  So  too  Glad- 
stone's is  still  a  great  name  here,  and  his  "  Letter " 
unforgotten.  So  in  spite  of  Garibaldi's  hot  words 
against  the  "  Neri  "  even  the  "  Neri  "  are  proud  of  Gari- 
baldi. So  too  the  republicans  would  not  depose  the 
King  who  "  made  Italy."  So  too  the  Conservatives 
and  the  Conservative  Chamber  passed  a  solemn  vote  of 
recognition  when  Mazzini  died,  though  Mazzini  was  to 
every  Conservative  a  name  which  summed  up  all  that 
was  terrible.  And  so  with  Lewis  Napoleon.  He 
helped, — it  may  be  against  his  will,  and  treacherously 


350  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

and  falsely,  but  he  helped  to  "  make  Italy."  At  any 
rate  a  gratitude  of  this  sort  is  a  different  thing  from  the 
sentimental  silliness  of  English  Napoleonism. 

Good-bye.  Remember  how  great  a  treat  a  letter 
from  Somerleaze  always  is,  and  believe  me,  dear  Free- 
man, ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

I  have  had  no  more  proofs,  so  I  suppose  I  "  ain't 
wanted." 

To  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  CAPRI, 
March  4,  1873. 

It  is  really  delightful,  my  dear  Humphry,  to  get 
apologies  from  a  correspondent  for  his  own  silence  at  a 
time  when  every  post  is  bringing  me  remonstrances  for 
mine. 

I  have  come  to  my  last  month  in  Capri  ;  at  least  I 
intend  at  present  to  cross  the  water  at  the  close  of 
March,  spend  a  week  or  so  in  doing  Paestum,  Amalfi, 
Pompeii,  and  Sibyl-land  and  then  go  on  to  Rome. 
April  and  the  beginning  of  May  is  said  to  be  pleasant 
at  Rome,  and  in  this  way  I  shall  "  dodge  "  the  perversity 
which  always  sets  me  longing  for  "  home  "  as  soon  as 
the  spring  begins.  Not  that  I  long  as  yet  for  my 
winter  has  passed  very  happily,  in  spite  of  the  "inevit- 
ables "  of  an  invalid  hotel  ;  and  I  love  Capri  more  than 
ever.  I  wonder  whether  I  shall  end  by  settling  there  ? 
I  have  done  so  well  this  winter,  and  I  seem  to  myself  to 
have  been  improving  so  steadily  these  last  two  years 
that  Clark  may  perhaps  let  me  stay  in  England  and 
take  work  ;  but  if  not,  I  must  clearly  make  some  per- 
manent arrangement  for  fixing  my  residence, — i.e.  my 
books,  abroad.  I  can  run  to  England  then  every 
summer  and  make  the  run  my  holiday,  while  what  is 
now  my  "  exile  "  will  simply  be  my  ordinary  working 
season.  If  I  took  some  house  here  and  had  my  books 
with  me  permanently  settled, — with  Rome  and  Florence 
to  run  to  on  one's  way  to  and  from  the  North, — life 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  351 

would  be  fairly  tolerable  in  every  other  way  than  the 
social.  The  present  system  is  ruinous  to  anything  like 
serious  work.  The  mere  living  in  hotels  makes  it  im- 
possible,— and  then  too  there  is  the  vagrant  character 
of  one's  life,  which  worries  and  unfixes  one.  However 
when  I  come  home  we  can  talk  this  over.  If  Clark 
will  let  me  stay — say  at  Bournemouth — I  think  I  should 
feel  bound  to  set  aside  all  pleasant  dreams  of  Italian  life  ; 
not  that  I  cling  to  England  as  such,  but  partly  be- 
cause I  do  cling  more  and  more  to  certain  people  in 
England,  and  partly  too  because  in  this  way  I  might 
perhaps  patch  up  my  life  again  to  a  certain  extent,  and 
take  something  like  an  editorship,  etc.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  feel  a  certain  cowardice  about  settling  again 
fairly  at  home,  now  that  my  opinions  have  become  so 
irreconcilable  with  my  past  position  and  the  like.  But 
after  all  accident  settles  all  these  things,  and  I  may  drift 
along  as  I  have  drifted  hitherto. 

I  have  written  quite  enough  to  Humphry,  dear 
Mary,  but  how  horrible  letters  are,  especially  when  one 
writes  them  at  night  all  alone  in  one's  room.  How  I 
wish  I  could  have  you  both  here  cosying  down  in  a 
myrtle  thicket  for  a  chat  in  the  sunshine.  For  the 
sunshine  has  fairly  come  back  to  us  now,  and  our 
winter — that  dull  month  with  its  rain  and  wind — has 
fled  away  again.  One  soon  forgets  it  now  Spring  is 
here,  and  the  flowers  are  out  in  a  flower-shower  on  the 
hillsides — just  as  Spring  flings  them  in  that  lovely 
Florentine  picture  —  orchis  and  anemone  and  crocus 
and  a  host  of  white  blossoms  and  blue  that  I  don't 
know  the  name  of.  We  had  a  dull  carnival,  for  the 
young  fisher  lads  are  ofF  coral-fishing  on  the  African 
coast,  and  there  is  something  too  serious  in  the  Caprese 
temper  for  the  true  Carnival  outbreak  of  downright 
childish  fun.  Indeed  Carnival  is  more  a  religious  festa 
than  a  social  one  ;  and  the  chief  sight  was  the  big 
church  at  Benediction  crammed  to  the  doors,  and  the 
wandering  home  of  group  and  group  through  the 


352  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

dark  village  lanthorn  in  hand — one  saw  them  scatter- 
ing like  a  swarm  of  fireflies  over  the  dusky  valley 
beneath.  Love  and  the  Madonna — those  are  the  two 
spiritual  sides  of  the  life  of  a  Caprese.  I  have  just 
been  shaking  hands  through  the  grating  of  the  Town- 
prison  on  the  Piazza  with  a  young  sailor,  who  came 
back  to  find  his  loved  one  coming  out  of  Church  from 
her  betrothal  with  a  wealthy  old  contadino.  He 
stabbed  them  both  ;  but  both  are  about  again — only  the 
contadino  thinks  better  of  his  intention,  and  the 
inamorata  comes  penitently  to  the  prison  gate  to 
weep  out  her  repentance,  and  pour  kisses  on  Giovanni's 
hand, — the  hand  that  stabbed  her.  He  is  a  quiet,  nice, 
respectable  young  fellow,  and  will  soon  be  out  again  and 
marry  Carmela,  and  buy  a  fishing-boat  and  be  a  respect- 
able father — die  perhaps  a  Churchwarden,  who  knows  ? 
At  any  rate,  public  opinion  goes  quite  with  Giovanni, 
and  I  go  as  I  always  go — with  public  opinion — and  so 
we  shake  hands,  and  he  fills  his  mouth  with  "  confetti  " 
(it  is  another  weakness  of  his  which  I  humour),  and 
laughs  and  talks  to  me  in  broken  Italian  through  the 
bars.  As  to  the  Madonna  whom  we  carried  about  in 
procession  the  other  day  to  get  good  weather  for  the 
coral  fishers,  and  whose  hair  has  unluckily  turned  red 
in  the  last  dyeing,  she  is  a  little  waning  in  religious 
fashion  as  May  draws  near  and  the  feast  of  San 
Costanzo  when  the  Bishop  comes  over  and  rides  a- 
cock-horse  up  the  hill  with  the  silver  image  of  "II 
Santo  Protettore  dell'  Isola "  before  him.  Costanzo, 
Costanza,  Constantino,  Constantina,  Costanzello,  Cos- 
tanzella — half  the  island  is  named  after  "  II  Protet- 
tore." Nobody  knows  his  own  surname.  Nicknames 
do  instead.  "  Who  is  your  father  ?  "  I  ask  a  boy. 
"  Constantin  "  he  replies,  "  Constantin  il  bugiardo  " 
(Constantine  the  Liar).  Lies  don't  count  for  much 
here — simply  intellectual  diversions. 

Good-bye,  you  know  I  am  ever,  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  G. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  353 

To  Mrs.  a  Court 

HOTEL  VICTORIA,  ROME, 
April  29,  1873. 

...  I  felt  wonderfully  hermit-like  yesterday  in  the 
midst  of  a  Roman  mob.  It  was  the  birthday  of  Rome 
—  whatever  that  may  mean — the  commemoration  of 
some  Romulus  or  Remus  business ;  and  so  as  St. 
Peter's  has  gone  into  darkness,  and  Pio  IX.  wont 
light  up,  the  government  gave  us  an  illumination  of 
old  Rome.  I  have  never  seen  anything  so  majestically 
weird  in  my  life  as  the  view  of  the  Colosseum  whether 
within  or  without  —  its  lower  arches  one  mass  of 
crimson  fire — its  upper  tiers  all  shadowy  with  pale 
green  light.  The  Sacred  Way  was  lit  up  in  the  same 
fashion,  and  then  came  the  turn  of  the  Forum — a  sea 
of  Dante-like  lurid  flame  in  which  the  great  fragments 
and  pillars  and  arches  rose  up  pale  and  aghast  as  they 
must  have  arisen  out  of  the  great  conflagration  in 
which  Nero  looked  down  and  fiddled.  It  was  wonder- 
fully sublime,  but  my  interest  lay  rather  with  the 
crowd  than  with  the  sublimities. 

It  was  so  odd  to  see  a  huge  crowd  again  in  the 
desolate,  solitary  old  Rome  after  all  these  centuries, 
since  Cicero  complained  of  the  mob  along  the  Sacred 
Way — to  see  the  Colosseum  buzzing  again  with  twenty 
thousand  Romans,  and  a  great  throng  squeezing 
through  the  arch  of  Titus  !  and  a  very  pretty  sight,  too, 
as  well  as  an  odd  one,  for  the  contrast  between  a 
Roman  mob  and  an  English  one  is  very  pretty  indeed. 
Nobody  crowded,  nobody  squeezed,  nobody  rushed. 
We  all  moved  gravely,  quietly,  as  if  we  were  walking 
in  Church.  There  was  none  of  the  chatter  of  a  French 
crowd,  or  of  the  rough  horseplay  of  an  English.  I 
think  it  is  this  innate  gravity  of  the  Southern  temper 
which  has  struck  me  most  in  it,  whether  here  or  at 
Capri  ;  it  is  this  which  gives  the  gentlemanlike  stamp 
(I  can  hardly  use  any  other  phrase)  to  the  roughest 
fisher  or  the  commonest  trasteverino. 

2  A 


354  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

You  see  your  kind  hope  is  realised,  and  I  am 
managing  to  get  infinite  delight  out  of  Rome.  How 
lovely  the  spring  is  here !  My  pleasantest  days  have 
been  spent  in  the  Campagna.  I  had  no  notion  I 
should  care  for  it,  and  I  love  it.  I  had  always  shrunk 
from  it  as  something  dreary  and  uncanny  (I  don't  like 
dreary  things),  and  instead  of  this  I  find  it  a  great 
broad  reach  of  rolling  down,  scarred  with  tombs, 
aqueducts,  arches,  but  carpeted  with  such  deep  grass, 
and  crimsoned  with  flowers.  It  was  delightful  to  fling 
oneself  down  well  out  in  the  open,  with  Rome  hanging 
like  a  dream  in  the  distance,  and  far  off  the  white  snow- 
line  defining  the  Sabine  range  against  the  pure  blue — 
to  see  the  wild  figures  of  the  buffaloes  tugging  at  the 
heavy  yoke  on  the  desolate  road,  or,  above  to  see  my 
first  eagle  soaring  over  the  soil  of  his  own  Rome. 
Imagine  fortune  having  reserved  me  for  this  at  thirty- 
five  ! 

I  brighten  up  at  the  very  thought  of  a  really  merry 
companion.  Why  are  people  so  grave,  so  solemn,  so 
afraid  of  laughter,  of  fun,  of  irony,  of  quiz,  of  non- 
sense in  all  its  delicious  forms  ?  Do  you  remember  how 
much  we  laughed  together  in  the  San  Remo  days  ?  I 
don't  feel  a  bit  penitent  when  I  think  of  all  the  extra- 
vagance and  nonsense  I  talked,  but  I  get  little  chance 
of  talking  nonsense  and  extravagances  here.  People 
pound  you  with  picture-galleries  and  basilicas,  and 
frown  down  a  joke  by  inquiring  your  opinion  as  to  the 
true  site  of  the  Temple  of  Concord. 

I  wonder  whether  there  will  be  another  world 
where  the  people  will  be  very  amusing?  It  might 
make  up  a  little  for  this. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET, 
August  2,  1873. 

My  life  has  been  wholly  spent  in  wissits,  Oh  dear, 
but  thoughtless  friend !  I  came  home  with  sober 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  355 

purpose  of  sticking  to  my  books  like  a  leech,  and  lo ! 
my  friends  make  a  murmuring,  and  those  that  love 
me  have  lift  up  their  head.  Seriously,  dear  Olga,  I 
have  been  working  very  hard  to  get  my  book  off  my 
hands,  and  have  led  a  very  hermit-like  life  among 
"  Reformations "  and  "  Great  Rebellions "  till  I  do 
really  see  light.  I  have  now  only  about  a  chapter  and 
a  half  to  do,  so  far  as  writing  goes,  and  about  half  the 
book  is  in  type,  and  the  rest  printing  fast.  But  then 
there  are  maps  and  "  Chronological  Tables "  to  finish 
up  with,  which  my  soul  loatheth.  That  good  little 
Madeline  Ward  took  pity  on  me  to-day,  and  promised 
to  try  her  hand  at  the  latter,  and  as  for  the  Maps  I 
think  I  shall  stick  in  anything — say  that  of  Abyssinia, 
and  letter  it  beneath  "  Very  Early  England  indeed," 
and  so  on. 

Why  you  should  assume  that  I  am  "  well  and 
happy,  aye  more  happy  than  most  people  "  passes  my 
knowledge.  What  have  I  done  that  you  should  turn 
on  me  in  that  fashion,  dear  friend  ?  Happiness  is  a 
very  odd  thing,  and  I  think  Providence  distributes  it 
over  the  world  as  the  printers  distribute  commas  over  a 
proof — without  any  special  sense  or  propriety  in  the 
distribution.  With  me,  Happiness  means  simply  a 
Home  and  a  wife  and  some  wee  things  ;  if  I  don't  get 
these  I  don't  care  for  anything  else,  except  a  few 
friends  and  a  little  sunshine.  And  H.  and  W.  and 
W.  T.  I  shan't  get.  I  was  out  a-walking  t'other 
night  in  the  Park,  and  all  the  counter-jumpers  were 
there,  each  with  a  counter-jumperess  on  his  arm ! 
And  I  longed  for  once  to  be  a  counter-jumper.  As  it 
is,  I  must  put  up  for  the  wee  while  they  call  life  with 
being  like  Gibbon — do  you  remember  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland's  pretty  speech  to  him?  "How  d'ye  do, 
Mr.  Gibbon,  still  doing  nothing  but  scribble,  scribble, 
scribble,  I  suppose  ?  " 

I  ran  down  to  see  Freeman  at  Somerleaze  for  a  few 
days,  which  has  been  my  one  holiday  since  I  visited 
you.  .  .  .  They  live  in  a  pretty  part  of  Somerset — 


356  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

just  the  broken  green  misty  scenery  which  strikes  one 
as  so  peculiarly  English,  after  one  has  been  much 
abroad  ;  with  Wells  and  its  great  Minster  lying  in  a 
hollow  beneath  them,  and  Glastonbury  a  short  drive 
off  across  the  flats.  Freeman  gave  us  a  fine  preach- 
ment over  the  Abbey  and  its  ruins,  and  I  earwigged 
the  organist  at  the  Cathedral,  and  got  him  to  play  me 
a  lot  of  Mendelssohn's  organ  music  after  everybody 
was  gone  (the  great  Cathedral  seemed  so  grand  when 
one  was  all  alone  there  with  the  music  rolling  away 
down  the  nave), — so  I  didn't  do  badly. 

Clark  tells  me  I  mustn't  hope  to  spend  this  coming 
winter  or  the  next  in  England  ;  which  "  cast  me  into  a 
swound  "  for  a  while,  as  I  thought  I  was  really  better, 
but  it  can't  be  helped.  It  will  be  a  great  thing  to  get 
wee  Book  off"  my  hands  before  I  go.  I  must  take  out 
a  little  "  France "  to  do  for  that  by  way  of  money- 
making  ;  and  I  want  to  throw  into  shape  this  winter 
two  small  books — one  of  Essays  on  Oxford  History, 
the  other  of  my  Italian  Sketches.  I  should  make  up 
the  first  of  the  Papers  on  Early  Oxford  I  wrote  in 
Macmillan,  a  paper  on  Oxford  in  the  Great  Rebellion, 
and  another  on  Puritan  Oxford — both  of  which  I  have 
got  to  write  —  and  close  with  two  long  papers  on 
"Oxford  Society  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  and  "the 
Oxford  Jacobites "  which  I  wrote  when  I  was  an 
undergraduate.  As  for  Italy,  Macmillan  wants  me 
much  to  give  him  simply  the  papers  I  have  written  ; 
but  I  don't  mean  to  do  so  till  I  have  added  some  more 
— say  on  "  Verona,"  "  The  Florence  of  Dante," 
"  Roman  History  in  the  Forum  and  on  the  Palatine," 
Assisi,  Amalfi — at  least  these  with  my  Riviera  sketches 
to  begin  with,  the  Capri  papers  to  end  with,  and  the 
papers  on  Italian  Society  and  religion  I  have  written 
from  time  to  time  to  vary  them  would  make  a  pleasant 
and  perhaps  useful  little  book. 

But  these  are  by- plays.  My  real  hope  now 
Little  Book  is  over  is  to  begin  Big  Book.  The 
"  History  of  the  Great  Charter "  is  the  title  I  have 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  357 

fixed  upon — in  three  vols — from  the  death  of  Henry 
the  First  to  the  death  of  Simon  of  Montfort.  I  don't 
think  it  will  be  as  original  a  thing  as  my  Little  Book, 
but  people  measure  one  very  much  more  by  the  size  of 
one's  book  than  by  its  intrinsic  value,  and  you  must 
publish  in  "  three  volumes  octavo "  to  be  a  great 
historian. 

Good-bye. — Ever  your  friend,  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
September  16,  1873. 

[Thomas}  Lord  Seymour,  was  beheaded  March  20, 
I549-] 

Many  thanks,  my  dear  Freeman,  for  the  review  and 
your  notes  of  this  morning.  Even  if  I  am  unable  to 
follow  you  in  all  of  them,  you  are  doing  me  a  great 
service  in  warning  me  of  so  fatal  a  danger  as  the  one 
you  point  out, — that  most  of  what  I  say  "  will  have  no 
meaning  save  to  people  who  already  have  a  knowledge 
of  the  matter  a  good  deal  above  the  average."  It  is 
the  danger  which  has  beset  the  book  all  through,  and 
from  which  I  thought  I  was  freeing  myself,  but  it  seems 
that  my  effort  was  a  failure.  However,  I  will  still  try 
on.  As  to  style,  what  you  say  about  "  pluperfects  "  is 
quite  just,  and  I  have  been  striking  out  all  I  could  on 
the  final  revises.  So,  too,  Haweis  has  pointed  out  to 
me  the  faults  of  over-emphasis  and  "apposite  sen- 
tences "  I  am  so  apt  to  fall  into.  The  book  is  full  of 
faults  of  this  kind,  which  make  one  feel  almost  hopeless 
of  ever  learning  to  write  well. 

But  there  are  other  "  faults," — if  faults  they  are, — 
which  I  can  hardly  correct  unless  I  wholly  alter  my 
conception  of  the  book,  and  indeed  of  history.  One  is 
the  suppression  or  omission  of  facts  which  appear  to  me 
to  have  no  historic  value.  Thus  you  ask  "  when  do 


358  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

you  kill  T.  Seymour  ? "  I  purposely  left  him  out 
altogether.  His  intrigue  and  death  have  in  my  mind  no 
bearing  whatever  on  the  general  current  of  our  history. 
If  I  were  writing  a  great  history  in  detail — say  eight 
volumes  or  so — it  might  be  fairly  urged  that,  as  one 
can  hardly  tell  what  facts  will  in  the  end  turn  out  to  be 
important,  it  is  better  to  put  in  too  many  than  too  few. 
But  in  so  brief  a  story  as  mine  a  selection  has  to  be 
made,  whether  or  no  ;  some  things  must  be  left  out ; 
and  I  have  endeavoured  to  leave  out  episodes  like 
Tommy  Seymour,  with  a  full  consciousness  that  nine 
readers  out  of  ten  (from  sheer  habituation  to  those  in 
other  histories)  will  suppose  I  have  forgotten  them. 

In  the  same  way  the  "  putting  things  out  of  their 
place  "  means,  I  suppose,  putting  things  out  of  the  place 
they  have  hitherto  occupied  in  common  histories.  But 
then  my  plan  is  in  many  ways  different  from  that  of 
common  histories.  Then  (whether  rightly  or  wrongly, 
don't  matter  here)  I  have  made  a  wholly  new  epoch— 
which  I  choose  (again  rightly  or  wrongly)  to  call  the 
"Reformation"  —  begin  towards  the  end  of  Henry 
VIII. 's  reign  with  the  Law  of  the  Six  Articles.  That  is 
to  say,  I  hold  that  at  that  time  a  certain  form  of  religious 
and  moral  thought  calling  itself  Protestantism,  which 
had  till  then  been  confined  to  a  small  section  of  the 
nation,  began  more  and  more  to  get  hold  of  the  nation 
at  large,  and  produced  in  the  period  that  followed  very 
weighty  results  on  its  history.  But  to  make  the  origin 
of  this  mode  of  thought  clear  I  have  to  go  back  some 
way  into  the  former  period,  and  so  to  give  an  appear- 
ance of  over-lapping  and  confusion  and  putting  things 
out  of  their  places.  But  if  my  plan  be  right,  they  are 
in  their  places  ;  and  if  my  plan  is  wrong,  then  the  book 
is  wrong  from  beginning  to  end. 

I  have  always  said  to  myself  that  it  is  quite  possible 
the  book  may  utterly  fail,  and  that  I  ought  not  to 
grumble  if  it  does.  I  give  English  History  in  the  only 
way  in  which  it  is  intelligible  or  interesting  to  me,  but 
it  does  not  follow  that  others  will  find  my  rendering  of 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  359 

it  interesting  or  intelligible.  Then  again  :  there  is  such 
a  just  aversion  to  "  philosophies  of  history  "  on  account 
of  the  nonsense  which  has  passed  under  that  name, 
that  it  is  quite  likely  people  may  turn  away  from  a  story 
which  strives  to  put  facts  on  a  philosophical  basis,  and 
to  make  events  the  outcome  of  social  or  religious 
currents  of  thought.  Then  too  others  may  quite  fairly 
feel  that,  however  interesting  the  attempt  to  work  in 
literary  and  moral  influences  may  be,  it  is  safer  and  less 
confusing  to  stick  to  a  purely  political  mode  of  viewing 
things.  I  put  aside  of  course  the  yet  larger  number 
of  people  who  will  condemn  it  as  "  superficial,"  because 
it  is  picturesque  ;  or  as  partizan  in  its  tone,  because  no 
party  finds  itself  really  represented  in  its  pages.  For  a 
failure  on  these  latter  grounds  I  shouldn't  care  a  straw  ;  a 
failure  on  the  other  grounds  would  be  a  far  heavier  blow, 
but  it  is  one  which  would  not  take  me  by  surprise,  and 
which  I  certainly  should  have  no  right  to  grumble  at. 

Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum  and  I  have  been 
wrong  so  often  during  this  life  of  mine  in  great  con- 
clusions which  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  irrefragable, 
that  it  is  quite  possible  I  am  wrong  in  Little  Book. 
It  is  the  one  advantage  of  being  a  sceptic  that  one  is 
never  very  surprised  or  angry  to  find  that  one's 
opponents  are  in  the  right. 

It  is  partly  thoughts  of  this  sort  which  have  made 
me  linger  so  long  over  Little  Book.  I  am  fond  of  it  in 
a  way,  and  I  don't  want  to  turn  it  out  on  to  the  world 
and  see  it  kicked  down  the  gutter.  I  tell  you  them 
now  because  I  want  you  to  see  that  I  do  appreciate  your 
criticisms,  and  that  if  I  don't  always  follow  your  advice 
it  is  because  Little  Book  (having  been  conceived  in  sin) 
won't  always  let  me. 

I  am  slowly  mending, — there  is  no  return  of  haemor- 
rhage, but  my  chest  is  in  a  bad  way,  and  unluckily  my 
doctor  is  out  of  town.  Physically  I  am  weaker  and  more 
depressed  in  spirits  than  I  have  been  for  a  long  time. 

Good-bye. — Ever  yours,  dear  Freeman, 

J.  R.  G. 


360  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W. 

[Freeman  makes  some  remarks  upon  the  following 
in  a  letter  to  Miss  Thompson  of  January  25,  1874, 
published  in  his  Life,  vol.  ii.  p.  79.] 

I  have  just  read  your  answer  to  my  "  cavils,"  dear 
Freeman, — "  cavil "  I  just  notice  in  passing  being,  so 
far  as  my  experience  goes,  a  mere  name  for  an  argument 
when  it  pinches  one.  I  only  wrote  one  word  on  that 
and  on  your  letter, — a  word  of  protest  against  any  sup- 
posed "  theological  "  bearing  of  my  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject. The  question  between  us  is  a  strictly  historical 
one.  It  is  simply  whether  history  is  to  deal  only  with 
one  set  of  facts  and  documents  relating  to  a  period,  or 
with  all  the  facts  and  documents  it  can  find. 

On  the  legal  continuity  of  the  Church  of  England 
Hook  says  nothing  half  so  forcible  as  the  unbroken  row 
of  Registers  on  the  Lambeth  shelves.  But  we  possess 
another  set  of  documents  equally  continuous,  those 
which  record  the  presentations  to  livings.  Stubbs 
pointed  out  to  me  long  ago  that  you  might  read  these 
through,  and  hardly  guess  that  any  ecclesiastical  change 
had  accompanied  the  Great  Rebellion.  There  are  verbal 
differences,  but  not  more  extensive  than  those  which 
appear  in  the  extant  Consecration -Deed  of  Parker. 
The  matter  is  simple  enough, — a  registrar  or  lawyer 
whose  daily  business  is  drawing  up  documents  by  pre- 
cedent alters  just  as  little  as  he  can,  and  of  course  under 
Elizabeth  there  were  grave  political  reasons  why  Queen 
and  Primate  were  at  one  in  this  matter  with  the  lawyer. 
But  that  even  this  matter  of  the  identity  of  legal  docu- 
ments must  not  be  pushed  too  far  Parker's  own  Conse- 
cration Deed  is  fair  proof.  It  is  remarkable  with  what 
care  and  minuteness  it  records  the  significant  changes  in 
the  Consecration  Service, — but  you  no  doubt  know  it. 

Making  however  these  allowances,  there  is,  no 
doubt, — and  was  meant  to  be, — a  legal  continuity  in  the 


in  THE  « SHORT  HISTORY'  361 

English  Church  under  Elizabeth,  and  so  far  as  its  inner 
condition  goes,  some  sort  of  identity  with  the  pre- 
Reformation  church.  But  compare  1480  with  1580, 
and  set  the  church  of  the  one  time  fairly  against  that  of 
the  other.  In  the  one  case  we  have  an  ecclesiastical 
body  forming  a  member  of  a  sort  of  federation  of 
similar  bodies  united  under  the  supremacy  (really  under 
the  actual  rule)  of  the  Pope,  with  a  legislature  of  its 
own,  exemption  in  many  points  from  the  common  law, 
independent  power  of  decreeing  dogmas  and  enforcing 
them  by  its  own  courts,  and  the  like.  In  the  other,  its 
outer  political  form  is  utterly  changed  ;  it  is  isolated  in 
Christendom  ;  while  within  its  immunities  and  inde- 
pendence are  utterly  destroyed.  In  a  purely  political 
sense  can  we  deny  that  a  great  change  has  taken  place — 
or  that  this  change  was  what  people  have  called,  from 
that  day  to  this,  the  Reformation  ?  Then,  too,  looking 
strictly  as  an  historian  to  the  religious  opinions  of  the 
English  people  at  the  two  epochs,  I  see  a  change  even 
greater  than  the  outer  constitutional  change  in  the  aspect 
of  the  Church — and  I  know  no  name  for  this  change  but 
the  same  one  of  the  Reformation. 

Now  whether  the  Church  was  the  same  Church  or 
no,  or  whether  the  opinions  at  either  period  were  right 
or  wrong,  is  as  you  say  no  question  for  an  historian, 
and  I  may  add  personally,  is  of  no  possible  importance 
to  me.  All  I  care  about  is  the  fact  of  the  change, — and 
of  the  double  change.  And  this  fact  I  do  repeat  your 
little  book  absolutely  ignores. 

No  doubt  Parker  and  still  more  Bancroft  strove  to 
minimise  the  outer  constitutional  appearance  of  change. 
But  no  two  people  were  more  conscious  that  a  great 
change  had  taken  place.  Their  steady  use  of  the  term 
*'  Reformed  "  as  the  epithet  for  the  Church  of  England, 
is  quite  enough  to  prove  this  when  one  remembers  that 
the  word  was  then  used  strictly  in  its  technical  sense,  as 
expressing  the  fact  that  England  took  a  definite  place  as 
one  of  the  Calvinistic  churches  (as  we  say  nowadays) 
with  those  of  the  Continent.  As  to  their  consciousness 


362  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

of  an  internal  change,  it  is  true  that  Parker  and  Cecil 
went  to  mass  under  Mary,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
they  both  denounced  "mass"  as  "idolatry,"  and  made 
attendance  at  it  a  crime  under  Elizabeth. 

In  reality  Hook  can  only  support  his  theory  by 
resolutely  ignoring  the  whole  private  correspondence  of 
the  time.  The  question  is  strictly  whether  Parker  and 
certain  other  persons  believed  that  they  were  at  one 
with  Churches  which  had  undoubtedly  been  "  pulled 
down  and  set  up  again,"  and  the  answer  to  this  question 
is  simply  that  they  did.  In  the  four  volumes  of  the 
Zurich  letters — in  the  correspondence  of  Calvin — in 
that  of  Knox — one  may  see  on  what  intimate  terms  of 
communion  and  common  interest  the  statesmen  and 
churchmen  of  England  believed  themselves  to  stand 
with  the  Calvinistic  (I  say  nothing  of  the  Lutheran) 
Churches  in  Scotland  and  abroad.  On  the  other  hand, 
their  hatred  and  dread  of  the  unreformed  churches  of 
Italy,  Spain,  etc.  needs  no  quotations  from  letters. 
But  the  strongest  evidence  for  both  these  beliefs  is  to 
be  found  in  the  public  words  of  Elizabeth  herself. 

You  by  your  silence  deny  that  such  a  thing  as  the 
Reformation  ever  took  place.  Elizabeth,  Cecil,  Parker, 
again  and  again  assert  it  to  have  taken  place.  The 
question  is  between  you  and  the  men  of  the  Reformation 
Epoch, — not  between  you  and  me. 

I  am  only  this  moment  back  from  Oxford.  Stubbs 
was  delightful.  More  when  we  meet. — Ever  yours, 
dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

Thanks  for  the  Bede  lecture  which  has  just  arrived. 
To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W.,  LONDON, 
October  30,  1873. 

Wasn't  it  at  Abbeville,  dear  Freeman,  that  we  two 
saw  (years  ago)  the  announcement  of  a  new  drama, 
called  "  The  Tower  of  London  "  which  began  thus  : 

Act  I.     Adam  and  Eve  ? 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  363 

Well,  I  send  you  something  which  beats  that  all  to 
shivers.  Conceive  the  "  Exciting  Scene  between  Fair 
Rosamond,  King  Henry,  and  Thomas  a-Beckett,"  and 
remember  that  the  three  are  on  horseback.  Oh, 
murther,  as  the  Irishmen  say,  that  I  daren't  go  out  of 
nights  and  see  the  pretty  dear  a-exciting  the  Monarch 
and  the  Primate. 

I  love  Italy  too  well  not  to  envy  you  your  Italian 
sunshine.  Here  the  winter  is  fast  closing  in.  Yester- 
day it  was  fog  all  day,  and  I  was  a  prisoner  from  morn 
till  eve.  I  felt  very  odd  for  it  was  just  three  years  since 
I  had  seen  a  fog,  and  it  looked  very  uncanny.  How- 
ever I  keep  fairly  well  by  dint  of  staying  indoors 
whenever  there  isn't  downright  sunshine.  Of  course 
going  to  Oxford  is  just  as  impossible  as  if  I  were  at 
Capri,  so  your  services  as  Examiner  still  demand  my 
gratitude.  But  fog  or  no  fog  it  is  very  pleasant  to 
stay  among  one's  books.  Just  now,  as  the  proofs  of 
my  Little  Book  come  in  so  slowly,  I  am  pushing  forward 
into  certain  parts  of  the  bigger  one  that  is  to  be  ;  and 
this  morning  I  got  wild  over  the  historical  schools 
which  go  on  under  Henry  the  First,  the  story  of 
which  I  mean  to  give.  The  Worcester  school  you 
ought  to  have  said  a  lot  about  in  Vol.  I.  of  N.  C,  and 
with  a  little  dexterity  you  might  have  dragged  in  all 
the  story  of  the  Chronicle ;  but  you  people  who  "delight 
in  war"  never  care  for  anything  but  drums  and 
trumpets  !  However  you  are  better  than  the  rest,  for 
you  do  take  an  interest  in  two  other  things  besides,  to 
wit,  bishops  and  strumpets. 

And  so  you  are  really  at  Rome !  Isn't  it  a  place, 
just  ?  I  was  out  and  about  for  a  month  and  a  half  in 
it,  and  there  are  a  lot  of  things  I  have  still  to  see. 
One  thing  which  struck  me  very  much,  and  which 
none  of  the  books  make  much  fuss  about,  not  even 
Gregorovius,  is  what  they  call  the  House  of  Rienzi, 
by  the  temple  of  Fortuna  Virilis  and  that  of  Vesta 
(I  take  the  popular  names  of  both,  for  nobody  knows 
exactly  what  to  call  anything  in  Rome),  but  which  by 


364  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Gregorovius's  account  seems  to  be  the  house  of  Cres- 
centius.  At  any  rate  it  is  a  very  remarkable  bit  of 
early  mediaeval  domestic  architecture  of  tenth  century 
date  or  so,  and  the  only  one  (I  think)  in  Rome.  It  is 
built  up  out  of  bits  of  older  work, — say  the  books, — 
but  to  my  eye  a  good  deal  of  the  ornamental  work  in 
the  cornice  seemed  good  Middle-Age  imitation  of  the 
older  mouldings,  and  very  curious  as  showing  how  the 
classical  forms  passed  into  the  later.  This  however 
was  mere  guess-work  of  course,  only  I  want  you  to 
look  at  it.  The  best  bit  is  up  a  side  passage,  which 
stinketh  horribly.  Don't  forget  to  go  a  pilgrimage  to 
the  English  places, — S.  Gregorio  on  the  Colline,  and 
the  Church  of  John  and  Paul  close  by  (whose  outer 
apse  I  think  one  of  the  most  effective  things  in  Rome), 
and  whose  "  portico  with  classic  columns  and  Ionic 
capitals,"  says  Hemans,  is  the  one  bit  of  work  in  Rome 
which  was  set  up  by  our  Pope,  Hadrian  IV.  There 
are  some  odd  little  English  traces  here  and  there  about 
Rome  that  the  guide-books  pass  by — As  for  the  "Schola 
Saxonum"  there  is  the  church,  but  all  modern  it 
seems  to  me.  Still  it  is  pretty  so  go  and  see  it. 

Concerning  the  French  book,  I  don't  like  to  be 
piggish  and  cantankerous,  and  Macmillan  seems  to  be 
very  worried  over  it.  Moreover  I  have  not  the  least 
objection  to  your  conditions,  to  "  tell  the  facts,  and 
not  slang  people  who  are  alive  or  just  dead."  But 
"  telling  facts "  may  mean  very  different  things  with 
different  people ;  and  what  I  want  to  avoid  is  any 
possibility  of  any  disagreement  between  you  and  me, 
inasmuch  as  I  count  "  goodwill  on  earth "  of  more 
value  than  all  Little-Frances.  So  I  had  better  say 
what  my  difficulty  is.  As  you  see  in  my  own  Wee- 
Book,  I  think  moral  and  intellectual  facts  as  much 
facts  for  the  historian  as  military  or  political  facts ;  and 
if  I  deal  with  them  at  all  (and  deal  with  them  I  must 
if  I  write  at  all)  I  must  deal  with  them  much  as  I 
dealt  with  them  in  Little  Book.  That  is  to  say,  I 
can't  muddle  them  up  in  corners  always — as  Miss 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  365 

Thompson  does  (though  I  have  just  said  in  S.  R.  that 
I  think  her  literary  bits  far  the  best  things  in  her 
England)^  but  shall  sometimes  have  to  deal  with 
them  as  of  greater  importance  than  anything  else. 
Now  I  know,  dear  Freeman,  that  you  will  let  me  have 
my  own  way  so  far  as  you  can  ;  but  you  must  judge 
for  yourself  whether  you  can  bear  to  have  "  Little 
France "  written  on  the  same  principles  on  which  I 
have  writ  my  England,  and  if  you  can't  you  had 
better  give  it  over  to  Hunt.  If  you  can,  I  will  take 
it.  But  then  you  mustn't  groan  over  the  "  Poets " 
and  so  on,  because  the  "  Poets "  and  so  on  are  sure 
to  turn  up.  Of  course  you  can  keep  a  tight  hand  over 
me  and  see  I  leave  out  nothing  you  think  essential ; 
but  you  must  sometimes  put  up  with  my  putting  in 
things  you  don't  think  essential.  However  "  dixi."  If 
you  honestly  would  like  me  to  write  "  Little  F."  as  I 
have  writ  "  Little  E."  (only  on  a  much  littler  scale) 
then  I  will  write  it. 

The  more  Italian  middles  the  better.  I  suppose 
you  have  sent  one  in  on  Verona.  Let  me  know  if 
you  have  when  you  write.  As  to  Rome,  one  might 
write  for  ever,  but  what  I  hope  you  will  do  is  to  tell 
me  something  about  its  Romanesque  architecture. 
Certainly,  it  struck  me  when  I  was  there  than  one  got 
a  succession  of  "  transitional "  instances  from  Roman 
to  Romanesque  such  as  one  got  nowhere  else — but  then 
one  wanted  an  interpreter.  Murray  says  naught ;  and 
Hemans  gave  little  help. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W.,  LONDON, 
November  6,  1873. 

What  an  amusing  little  person  Mrs.  A.  is !  She  is 
so  clever — she  knows  so  many  odd  things — and  knows 
nothing  of  so  many  common  ones.  I  was  talking  to 
her  of  the  scenery  of  the  Tiber, — "  Where  is  the 


366  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Tiber  ?  "  she  asked  a  little  pettishly  at  last,  "  I  know  it 
is  somewhere  in  Italy  !  "  with  a  little  stamp  of  the 
foot !  "  I  am  getting  so  interested  in  the  Renaissance," 
she  said  plaintively  the  other  day,  "  it  is  the  most 
interesting  period  in  History  ;  but  I  never  can  re- 
member where  it  comes ! "  She  is  never  idle,  and 
finishes  nothing.  The  portrait  of  C.  is  unfinished, 
her  bust  of  D.  wants,  and  probably  will  always  want 
the  last  touches  ;  she  began  a  series  of  papers  on  dress, 
and  broke  off  at  the  end  of  the  second.  "  I  don't  care 
for  novels,"  she  said  frankly,  because  all  the  interesting 
things  come  at  the  end,  and  I  never  get  to  the  end." 
"Does  she  dress  well?"  she  broke  out  as  I  was 
praising  a  girl  I  knew.  "  Of  course  there  are  other 
points  I  should  like  to  know  about,  but  that  is  what  I 
always  judge  by."  "  I  wish  C.  would  train  me,"  she 
said  the  other  day,  folding  her  hands  in  a  childlike 
way  ;  "  I  need  training  if  my  mind  is  ever  to  be  worth 
anything  ;  but  then  I  have  no  will  and  no  application, 
and  I  get  tired  of  everything  in  two  minutes,  and  so 
C.  gets  tired  of  me."  I  laugh,  but  I  like  the  little  dash 
of  genius  about  her  ;  her  freedom  from  the  common- 
place, her  contempt  for  all  the  big  phrases  and  tall 
talk  which  Carlyle  and  his  set  have  set  going  in  the 
bulk  of  people.  "  Of  course  one  must  do  one's  work 
in  the  world,"  I  heard  a  Miss  H.  say  to  her  in  a 
tone  of  papal  dogmatism.  "  Why  ? "  asked  Mrs.  A., 
looking  up  as  if  she  never  heard  so  ridiculous  a  state- 
ment before.  "  I  don't  see  how  one  could  live  if  one 
didn't  feel  that,"  replied  Miss  H.  severely.  "  It  is 
very  hard  to  live,"  replied  Mrs.  A.  pensively,  "  but  you 
know  Cook's  tickets  help  you  so  much  ! "  Miss  H. 
turned  away,  and  whispered  to  her  next  neighbour 
something  about  "  a  little  fool,"  but  Mrs.  A.  has  more 
wits  in  her  little  finger  than  a  thousand  Miss  H.'s. 
Her  phrase  about  Mrs.  B.  in  the  course  of  her  de- 
scription of  her  to  me  was  perfect.  "  She  is  a  very 
strong  woman — not  in  her  head,  you  know  !  "  and 
then  afterwards,  "  She  is  very  sensible,  but  like  most 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  367 

sensible  people  that  I  have  ever  met,  not  very  wise." 
"I  wonder,"  she  ended,  "whether  7  shall  ever  get  a 
little  common  sense.  If  I  do,"  she  added  very  slowly 
and  resolutely,  "  I  hope  I  shall  die  !  " 

I  have  just  begun  Paradise  Lost  again,  partly  for 
the  delight  of  reading  it  in  a  most  exquisite  edition,  a 
reprint  of  the  First  Edition  which  came  out  a  little 
while  ago,  and  which  I  got  before  my  economical 
resolve  not  to  increase  my  library.  One  or  two  things 
in  this  reprint  are  curious  enough.  In  the  first  place, 
instead  of  the  twelve  books  to  which  one  is  used 
it  is  in  ten.  It  was  only  in  the  edition  issued  just 
before  his  death  that  Milton  divided  the  Seventh  and 
Tenth  Books  of  his  poem  (as  originally  issued)  each 
into  two  books,  adding  a  few  lines  to  the  opening  of 
the  new  Eighth  and  Twelfth.  Then,  too,  the  ortho- 
graphy is  very  curious.  Milton  seems,  blind  as  he 
was,  to  have  been  particular  about  it ;  for  instance  he 
inserts  in  the  last  edition  published  in  his  lifetime  an 
erratum  "  for  '  we  '  read  '  wee.' '  He  seems  to  have 
used  the  forms  "  wee,"  "  hee,"  or  "  shee,"  whenever  he 
was  laying  stress  on  the  words.  Indeed  his  spelling 
seems  to  have  been  dictated  very  much  by  rhythmical 
consideration;  "  Rhene  "  and  "  Danaw  "  are  instances, 
I  think.  Reading  out  the  First  Book  all  through  at  a 
sitting  this  afternoon,  I  was  a  good  deal  struck  with 
the  great  inequality  of  the  poem.  From  the  grand 
picture  of  the  fallen  Satan  one  passes  to  what  seems 
to  me  the  very  dull  enumeration  of  the  idol  gods 
of  Palestine,  and  then  one  rises  afresh  to  the  muster 
of  the  ruined  angels  to  fall  again  to  the  building  of 
Pandemonium,  and  the  shrinking  of  the  giant  daemon 
forms  into  pygmies  to  find  room  within  it.  I  own 
this  touch  strikes  me  as  ludicrous  and  incongruous  to 
the  last  degree  :  but  the  whole  of  the  metal-casting 
and  building  business  of  the  close  of  the  book  is 
dreadfully  prosaic.  But  setting  aside  the  more  obvious 
points  of  interest,  I  felt  more  and  more  the  vast  force 
which  sweeps  together  into  one  great  stream  all  the 


368  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

i 

raised  current  of  Milton's  mind,  his  youthful  memories 
of  the  romances  of  chivalry,  of  Charlemain  and 
Agramant,  the  recollections  of  his  Italian  journeys, 
of  Fiesole  and  Vallombrosa,  his  general  and  rather  odd 
reading,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Kraken  outstretched 
many  a  rood,  the  sights  he  saw  in  his  London  home, 
the  marshalling  of  the  soldiers  or  the  uproar  of  the 
streets  at  night,  and  all  that  legendary  and  Talmudic 
lore  which  has  become  so  familiar  to  us  that  (as  in  his 
whole  story  of  the  Battle  of  the  Fallen  Angels  with 
God)  half  England  believes  it  to  be  somewhere  in  the 
Bible. 

After  dinner  Brooke  and  Edward  Hawkins  came  in, 
and  we  had  a  jolly  talk  over  the  late  Union  dinner,  and 
a  lot  of  Oxford  things.  Jowett  it  seems  entertained  at 
his  lodge,  Archbishop  Tait,  Canon  Oakeley  of  Islington, 
and  Capes, — Romanist,  no  Churchman,  and  the  head  of 
the  Anglican  Episcopate.  Tait  and  Manning  met  and 
shook  hands  in  Balliol  Lodge  !  Lowe  was  asked  down, 
but  said  he  "wasn't  good  enough  to  go."  Hawkins 
said  he  went  once  with  a  deputation  to  Lowe  on  the 
subject  of  adulterations.  The  particular  subject  of  com- 
plaint was  damaged  figs,  which  a  firm  in  the  City  were 
using  for  all  manner  of  purposes.  Lowe  replied 
gravely  that  all  the  forces  of  the  Government  should  be 
placed  at  their  disposal  to  suppress  the  breach  of  law  ; 
"  but,"  he  added  sotto  voce,  "  speaking  as  a  private 
person,  I  can  only  say  that  I  regard  the  man  who  turns 
rotten  figs  into  raspberry  jam  as  a  benefactor  of  man- 
kind !  "  Brooke  brought  a  story  of  old  Balliol  days 
which  Jowett  had  told  him  apropos  of  Sir  John  Cole- 
ridge. He  was  a  wonderfully  vain  undergraduate  ;  and 
little  Jenkins,  who  was  then  Master  of  Balliol,  deter- 
mined to  tell  him  so.  When  he  came  up  at  Collections 
— the  examination  held  at  the  end  of  the  term — Jenkins 
gravely  asked  each  of  the  Tutors  in  turn  what  was  their 
opinion  of  Mr.  Coleridge  ?  They  said  flattering  things, 
and  then  Jenkins  turned  on  the  blushing  youth.  "  Mr. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  369 

Coleridge !  Mr.  Tait  has  a  very  high  opinion  of  you. 
Mr.  Woolcombe  has  a  very  high  opinion  of  you.  In- 
deed all  the  Tutors  seem  to  have  a  very  high  opinion 
of  you."  Then  he  said  meditatively,  "  I  too  have  a 
high  opinion  of  Mr.  Coleridge !  But  there  is  one 
person  who  has  a  far  higher  opinion  of  Mr.  Coleridge 
than  either  I  or  Mr.  Tait  or  the  rest  of  the  Tutors, — 
and  that  person  is  Mr.  Coleridge  himself ! " 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To 

Now  I  think  that  if  you  would  have  looked  on 
culture,  not  as  the  mere  study  of  "  literature "  which 
withdrew  you  from  "  your  work,"  but  as  such  a  gradual 
entering  into  the  spirit  of  the  highest  thought  the  world 
has  ever  produced  as  enables  us  rightly  to  know  what 
the  value  of  all  work,  and  our  work  among  it,  really  is, 
—if  every  day  you  had  read  a  bit  of  Shakespeare  or  a 
bit  of  Dante  or  a  bit  of  Montaigne,  for  instance,  then 
you  would  not  have  ceased  to  love  Madame  Roland,  but 
you  would  have  reserved  the  fiery  enthusiasm  you  have 
for  her  for  characters  of  higher  order.  Like  all  the 
characters  of  the  French  Revolution  she  impresses  one 
by  her  earnestness,  her  unselfishness,  a  certain  grandeur 
of  tone  and  absence  of  pettiness,  a  sense  of  active  power, 
a  wonderful  energy.  These  are  traits  she  shares  with 
Danton  or  Robespierre  or  the  Girondins.  Like  them 
too  she  has  an  individuality,  a  freshness  of  feeling,  a  faith 
in  the  future  and  in  man,  a  personal  kindliness  and 
inner  simplicity  which  is  touching  enough.  Her  outer 
note  of  distinction  among  them  is  that  she  is  a  great 
writer  which  none  of  the  rest  were,  though  each  had 
a  separate  note  of  greatness,  and  her  inner  note  of  dis- 
tinction is  that  she  was  a  woman.  As  a  woman  she  has 
with  all  her  power  to  stand  apart  from  all  known  and 
active  part  in  the  great  struggle  which  was  her  life,  to 
influence  it  through  others,  to  look  on  like  a  Prometheus 
chained  at  the  changes  of  the  world.  This  is  just  the 

2  B 


370  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

sort  of  position  which  has  a  natural  and  tragic  pathos  in 
it,  and  it  is  not  only  a  pathos  which  her  life  inspires 
in  every  reader  but  which  it  inspired  in  Madame  Roland 
herself.  Add  to  this  a  woman's  tenderness,  mother's 
love,  passion, — and  we  have  a  great  and  dramatic  figure 
which  has  always  charmed  the  world,  and  should  always 
charm  it.  But  with  the  merits  of  her  time  she  has  its 
faults.  She  is  the  child  of  Plutarch  and  Rousseau. 
Her  creed  of  political  and  social  faith,  though  it  was 
life  and  death  to  her,  is  merely  the  string  of  silly  para- 
doxes which  Rousseau  built  up  into  a  revolutionary 
philosophy,  —  original  innocence  of  man,  —  original 
equality  of  the  race, — social  contracts, — human  perfecti- 
bility,— and  the  like.  Hollow  ideas  of  this  sort  found 
congenial  expression  in  the  hollow  rhetoric  of  Plutarch, 
the  child  of  great  "  decadence."  Nothing  in  the  world 
is  so  intolerable  as  the  taste  for  "  phrases  "  which  their 
study  of  Plutarch  gave  to  the  French  Revolutionists. 
Her  own  is  perhaps  the  most  human  phrase  of  all  : 
"  Oh  liberty,  how  many  crimes  are  committed  in  thy 
name  !  "  I  always  felt  a  little  satisfaction  in  remember- 
ing that  this  fine  phrase  was  directed  to  a  Plaster-of- 
Paris  Liberty  !  a  sham  statue  that  had  been  run  up  "  for 
effect "  by  David  or  somebody  of  the  same  stage- 
artist  sort.  But  setting  this  aside,  how  merely  imitative 
it  is  !  There  are  scores  of  rhetorical  phrases  of  this  sort 
in  Plutarch,  in  orations  of  the  later  Greek  rhetoricians 
when  they  took  to  turning  great  names  into  themes  for 
declamation,  and  big  as  they  look  they  are  the  easiest 
things  in  the  world  to  turn  out  when  once  the  knack  is 
caught.  And  it  is  imitative  in  death.  I  doubt  whether 
an  instance  can  be  found  of  any  really  great  person  who 
died  with  a  sounding  phrase  of  this  sort  on  his  lips,  and 
that  for  a  very  simple  reason,  that  with  the  very  great 
soul  the  mystery  of  life  and  death  leaves  no  room  for 
the  sense  of  an  "  audience  "  which  phrases  of  this  kind 
spring  from.  Compare  Joan  of  Arc's  words  as  she 
looked  for  the  last  time  over  the  city  which  was  burn- 
ing her  :  "  Oh,  Rouen,  Rouen,  I  have  great  fear  lest 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'1  371 

you  should  suffer  for  my  death," — or  Sir  Thomas 
More's  "  Do  not  hurt  my  beard  ;  that  hath  never  com- 
mitted treason  !  "  or  Nelson's  "  Kiss  me,  Hardy,"  or 
Goethe's  "  More  light."  How  strangely  different  all, 
and  yet  all  how  like  in  this  that  they  are  words  of  the 
inner  spirit  to  the  inner  spirit  of  the  dying  one  himself, 
— that  they  have  no  rhetorical  or  stagey  turn  about 
them,  no  sense  of  an  audience.  But  the  rhetorical,  forced 
tone  is  not  merely  in  the  language  of  the  time.  It  is  in 
the  characters  too.  Everybody  and  Madame  among 
them  is  draping  and  acting,  consciously  or  unconsciously. 
With  the  cry  of  "  Nature "  on  their  lips,  nobody  is 
natural.  And  as  a  sign  of  it  nobody  laughs.  All 
humour  disappears.  Earnestness  without  culture,  with- 
out the  sense  of  proportion,  without  the  humour  which 
often  supplies  the  want  of  a  sense  of  proportion,  without 
any  real  intelligence  of  men  or  things  gained  either  by 
experience  or  education  of  a  real  sort, — this  is  what 
made  the  French  Revolution  so  terrible  a  farce,  so 
ridiculous  a  tragedy.  And  of  all  this  Madame  Roland 
was  a  type,  a  type  beautiful  in  many  ways  but  still  a 
true  type.  With  all  her  power  and  intensity  she  is 
without  poetry,  without  genius.  The  true  way  to 
rightly  estimate  her  is  to  compare  her  with  those  people 
who  were  living  in  her  day  and  looking  on  with  her 
at  the  storm  of  the  Revolution, — Goethe,  Wordsworth, 
Mirabeau.  All  these  were  men  of  genius,  —  even 
Mirabeau,  blurred  and  blotted  as  his  genius  was.  All 
three  went  in  their  inmost  souls  with  the  Revolution. 
But  with  how  different  an  enthusiasm  from  that  of 
Madame  Roland. 

To 


4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W.,  LONDON, 

November  7,  1873. 

[Taine's  account  of  Tennyson  does  not  quite  corre- 
spond to  this.] 

Frank  Palgrave  whose  wife  is  out  of  town  has  been 
spending  an  hour  with  me,  and  has  left  behind  one 


372  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

very  characteristic  story  of  M.  Taine.  Did  you  ever 
read  his  History  of  English  Literature  ?  He  was  visit- 
ing England  to  get  information  for  his  last  volume 
and  especially  about  Tennyson,  and  it  was  about 
Tennyson  he  began  talking  to  Palgrave,  who  is  a 
great  friend  of  the  Laureate.  "  Wasn't  he  in  early 
youth  rich,  luxurious,  fond  of  pleasure,  self-indulgent?" 
he  asked.  "  I  see  it  all  in  his  early  poems — his  riot, 
his  adoration  of  physical  beauty,  his  delight  in  jewels, 
in  the  abandonment  of  all  to  pleasure,  in  wine,  and 
"  Stop,  stop ! "  said  Palgrave,  out  of  all 
patience,  "as  a  young  man  Tennyson  was  poor — he 
had  little  more  than  ^100  a  year,  his  habits  were  as 
they  still  are  simple  and  reserved,  he  cared  then  as  he 
cares  now  for  little  more  than  a  chat  and  a  pipe,  he 
has  never  known  luxury  in  your  sense  ;  and  if  his 
early  poems  are  luxurious  in  tone,  if  they  are  full  of 
beautiful  women  and  pearls  and  gold  and  what  not, 
it  is  because  he  is  a  poet  and  gifted  with  a  poet's 
imagination."  M.  Taine  bit  his  lip,  thanked  him  for 
his  information,  went  home — and  when  the  book  came 
out  Tennyson  was  found  still  painted  as  the  young 
voluptuary,  the  rich  profligate,  of  M.  Taine's  fancy. 
The  story  is  really  an  index  to  the  whole  character  of 
his  book. 

It  has  been  raining  all  day.  This  is  my  second  day 
of  utter  imprisonment  and  I  don't  take  kindly  to  my 
prison.  I  think  of  Capri  and  the  hours  among  its 
myrtles  and  the  great  reaches  of  luminous  air  ;  and  I 
pace  up  and  down  my  little  room  like  a  caged  lion.  I 
have  been  re-reading  George  Sand's  Lucrezia  Floriani 
and  its  continuation,  Le  Chdteau  des  Deserts.  Do  you 
know  the  first? — it  is  one  of  her  greatest  works — a 
description,  so  Liszt  says,  of  her  liaison  with  Chopin. 
It  is  at  any  rate  a  wonderful  study  of  the  two  types  of 
loving  souls — Lucrezia  with  her  series  of  lovers,  and 
yet  her  great  and  all-embracing  love  for  each  in  turn 
— and  the  Prince  with  the  intensity  of  his  single  love. 
Can  you  not  get  the  book  from  a  library  at  Mentone  ?— 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  373 

it  is  so  curiously  illustrative  of  other  things.     I  wonder 
whether  you  will  see  what  I  mean  ? 


To  Miss  von  Glehn 

MACMILLAN  AND  Co., 
29  &  30  BEDFORD  STREET, 
COVENT  GARDEN,  W.C., 
O/ga's  Birthday. 

You  see  why  I  write,  dear  Olga  ;  just  to  wish  you 
all  the  good  wishes  which  are  always  in  my  heart  when 
I  think  of  you,  and  above  all  when  I  think  of  your 
birthday.  A  great  lot  of  kindness  and  love  was  born 
on  that  day,  dear  friend  ;  and  I,  poor  I,  with  a  good 
many  other  folk,  have  a  good  right  to  keep  it  as  a 
Saint's  Day  and  a  Holiday  ! 

I  never  wrote  to  you  on  a  birthday  before,  fortun- 
ately I  remember  the  day  to-day.  Sometimes  the 
thought  of  the  years  that  have  gone  is  a  sad  and  an 
oppressive  one  —  but  yet  withal  how  many  sweet 
memories  the  thought  of  them  brings  with  it,  and 
sweetest  of  all  perhaps  the  thought  of  real  friendships 
which  let  the  changing  years  go  by  unchanged.  That 
is  our  friendship,  dear  Olga,  and  in  spite  of  all  my 
silences  and  absences  my  friendship  for  you  never 
wavers,  and  the  memory  of  all  your  kind  words  and 
deeds  never  grows  faint. 

Good-bye.  J.  R.  G. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
January  1 8,  1874. 

[The  Archeology  of  Rome,  by  John  Henry  Parker 
(1806-1884),  appeared  in  n  vols.,  1872-1880.] 

You  were  quite  right,  dear  Freeman,  in  picking  me 
up  about  Parker.  His  book  hasn't  come  to  me  for 
«$".  R.  ;  but  I  have  been  reading  at  it  a  little,  and  in 


374  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

spite  of  its  marvellous  arrangement  or  no-arrangement 
it  strikes  me  as  by  far  the  most  important  contribution 
to  early  Roman  history  that  has  appeared  as  yet. 
What  P.  should  have  done,  I  think,  was  to  put  aside 
all  the  documentary  evidence,  and  to  show  first  of  all 
what  his  ditches  and  cliffs  and  stones  proved  by  them- 
selves. They  seem  to  me  to  prove  a  good  deal.  First, 
they  prove  the  separate  towns  on  the  Palatine  and  the 
Capitoline.  Then  their  union  and  the  wall  round 
them  to  the  Tiber,  then  the  annexation  or  union  with 
them  of  the  separate  village  towns  on  the  hills  about 
them,  and  their  inclusion  in  a  second  common  wall 
whose  character  shows  the  importance  and  labour  power 
of  the  new  state.  Then  within  this  come  the  great 
architectural  and  drainage  works  ;  the  buildings  of  the 
^Erarium  and  Record  Office  in  front  of  the  Capitol 
which  must  have  been  coeval  with  the  drainage  of  the 
two  marshes  which  became  the  Circus  and  the  Forum, 
and  which  again  were  coeval  with  the  Pulchrum  Littus 
and  the  Cloaca  Maxima.  All  this  seems  to  me  as 
clearly  made  out  in  point  of  succession  as  a  proposition 
in  Euclid ;  but  a  good  deal  follows  from  it.  Thus 
there  is  the  advance  in  building -art,  the  difference 
between  the  Palatine  wall  and  the  (so-called)  Servian, 
and  especially  the  use  of  iron -clamps  in  the  latter. 
But  of  greater  importance  is  the  difference  of  the 
stone  used.  The  Palatine  wall  is  exclusively  of  tufa, 
the  stone  found  at  Rome  itself.  But  in  the  latter  wall 
work  one  finds  "  sperone  " — which  can  only  have  come 
from  Gabii — and  intermediate  between  these  comes  the 
case  of  "  peperino "  which  Parker  declares  to  come 
"  from  the  quarries  of  the  Alban  hills."  Now  assum- 
ing P.'s  facts  to  be  true  (and  about  the  peperino  I 
doubt — for  peperino  exists  in  Rome,  as  e.g.  on  the 
"  Tarpeian "  side  of  the  Capitol,  though  it  may  be  a 
different  sort  of  peperino  and  so  P.  may  be  quite 
right),  but  assuming  the  truth  of  P.'s  facts,  one  does 
get  a  sort  of  date  for  the  reduction  or  annexation  or 
cession  of  Gabii  and  Alba.  And  when  this  (and  a 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  375 

good  deal  more  no  doubt  than  this)  has  been  made 
out  of  the  stones  themselves,  then  I  think  we  may  get 
a  sort  of  test  for  dealing  with  the  later  historic  traditions 
of  Varro  and  this  Augustan  folk. 

The  book  is  such  a  chaos  that  I  don't  think  anybody 
who  hasn't  a  pretty  good  knowledge  both  of  the  ground 
and  the  questions  at  issue  will  make  much  out  of  it — 
and  I  suppose  on  some  of  the  points,  such  as  the 
Palatine  and  the  Mamertine  Prison  we  are  to  hear 
more  in  Vol.  II.,  as  we  are  to  hear  about  the  Forum. 
But  the  Capitoline  is  admirably  done,  especially  the 
photographs  and  sections.  If  the  ^Erarium  and  Tabu- 
larium  as  they  stand  there  are  of  the  date  P.  gives,  it 
tells  a  great  tale  about  Regal  Rome.  And  certainly  to 
my  unlearned  eyes  his  pictures  seem  to  make  out  his 
case.  However  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  your  article,  and 
how  far  you  go  with  the  C.  B.  As  to  the  value  of  his 
book  and  his  diggings  I  quite  go  with  you.  But  some 
of  his  points  I  can't  follow — such  as  the  agger  he 
attributes  to  Tarquinius  outside  the  Servian  wall — did 
he  show  you  any  remains  of  this  ?  As  to  the  blunders, 
they  are  wonderful  even  for  the  C.  B.  Did  you 
recognise  the  dear  old  Jesuit  Papebroch  in  "  Pape- 
brochio  "  ? 

I  wish  he  had  gone  more  fully  and  minutely  into 
the  subject  of  "Old  Streets"  which  as  it  stands  is  a 
mere  sketch,  but  an  eminently  suggestive  one.  If  what 
he  says  is  true,  the  "  fosses "  and  so  the  old  village- 
fortifications  of  the  isolated  hill  forts  left  their  mark 
on  Rome  to  the  last. 

Saturday,  January  24. — This  letter  has  tarried  long 
— and  this  morning  brings  me  a  fresh  note  from  you. 
Thanks  for  your  corrections  on  the  revise  —  the 
"  Austria "  was  a  silly  slip  evidently  from  copying 
Guizot.  Thanks  especially  for  recalling  Edward's 
Parliament  and  its  Scotch  members,  but  the  Pro- 
tector's is  the  first  Parliament  like  that  which  now 
sits  at  S.  Stephen's  with  Scotch  and  Irish  members  as 


376  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

well.  Of  course  in  calling  Cromwell  a  "  tyrant "  I 
used  the  word  in  its  strict  sense  ;  and  in  that  sense  I 
don't  think  he  is  fairly  a  "  tyrant "  till  he  dissolves 
the  1654  Parliament.  My  notion  of  his  character  is, 
I  am  afraid,  a  new  one — I  say  "  afraid  "  because  I  hear 
Stubbs  votes  the  book  too  "  fanciful "  already,  but  I 
took  great  pains  to  avoid  being  fanciful  here,  and 
amongst  other  things  read  all  his  letters  and  speeches 
twice  through  to  make  sure  of  things.  Cromwell  seems 
to  me  neither  the  ambitious  hypocrite  nor  the  "  govern- 
ing genius  "  which  people  on  one  side  or  the  other  try 
to  make  him  out,  but  a  very  right-meaning  and  able 
man  who  got  with  quite  honest  intentions  into  a  false 
position  and  had  not  political  genius  enough  to  clear 
out  of  it.  Of  administrative  genius  he  had  plenty  of 
course.  All  his  later  story  seems  to  me  very  pathetic 
and  mournful  in  the  revolt  he  shows  at  his  position  of 
tyrant,  and  yet  his  inability  to  free  himself  from  it. 
I  felt  bound  to  speak  clearly  about  "tyranny"  because 
I  thought  there  was  a  great  chance  of  folk  misunder- 
standing my  previous  view  of  the  Army  and  the  Rump. 
The  "  expulsion  "  was  no  doubt  an  act  of  rebellion,  and 
it  is  justifiable  simply  on  the  grounds  which  justify 
any  other  act  of  rebellion.  The  Bill  which  the  Long 
Parliament  was  preparing  to  pass — reseating  all  present 
members  without  fresh  election  —  seems  to  me  such 
an  act  of  outrageous  misgovernment,  depriving  half 
England-  as  it  did  of  the  right  to  elect  its  governors, 
as  to  justify  a  rebellion.  And  so  far  as  I  can  make  out 
from  a  number  of  small  facts  the  country  at  large 
went  with  the  army  in  what  it  did  so  far,  but  on  the 
distinct  understanding  that  it  was  a  rebellion,  and  that 
things  were  at  once  to  fall  back  into  legal  shape  as 
soon  as  a  new  Parliament  could  be  called.  The  "  Bare- 
bones  "  Convention  and  the  intermediate  provisional 
Government  is  strictly  in  parallel  with  the  provisional 
Government  of  (i)  the  Lords  of  the  Council,  and  (2) 
the  Prince  of  Orange  with  (3)  the  Convention  he  called 
together  in  1688.  That  is  to  say,  none  of  these  could 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  377 

be  justified  save  on  the  understanding  that  they  were 
merely  provisional  till  a  legal  Parliament  should  be 
called  to  do  or  undo  their  work  and  approve  or  con- 
demn those  who  did  it.  And  this  Parliament,  I  hold, 
did  come  together  in  1654,  and  did  distinctly  confirm 
and  sanction  what  had  been  done. 

So  that  till  January  1655  I  go  with  the  Army,  and 
believe  all  done  if  not  legally  and  in  order  yet  justifi- 
ably as  against  misrule, — in  spite  of  John  Bradshaw. 
But  from  the  moment  when  C.  dissolved  that  Parliament, 
before  it  had  passed  the  measures  giving  him  authority 
to  govern,  and  with  the  Council  levied  taxes  and  what 
not,  the  "tyranny"  begins,  and  goes  on  to  the  Parlia- 
ment of  1656  ;  then  after  that  break  it  begins  again  and 
goes  on  to  C.'s  death. 

The  point  on  which,  as  I  gather  from  your  Amen, 
Bradshaw's  words,  you  and  I  should  differ  is  this.  In 
1688  it  was  settled  that  there  was  a  certain  amount  of 
misgovernment  and  oppression  which  justifies  a  country 
in  rising  in  arms  and  deposing  its  King  if  it  can't  do  so 
otherwise.  I  hold  that  when  Parliament  has  become  (as 
then)  the  actual  Government,  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
misgovernment  and  oppression  which  justifies  a  country 
in  deposing  it  by  force  if  it  can  do  so  none  otherwise. 
There  was  no  other  way  in  1653  of  preventing  the 
abominable  wrong  it  was  going  to  do  in  the  Bill  for  the 
New  Representative  but  turning  it  out,  and  there  was 
nobody  to  turn  it  out  but  the  army,  as  representative  of 
the  general  rebellion  of  the  country.  It  was  a  bad  and 
unhappy  business,  but  the  fault  really  lay  with  the  House, 
and  above  all  (I  quite  agree  with  C.)  with  Sir  Harry 
Vane.  He  was  a  good  man,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it 
is  good  men  who  mostly  bring  about  the  evil  of  the 
world. 

So  we  are  to  have  a  dissolution  !  I  think  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  for  Liberalism  if  we  got  a  good  beat- 
ing this  time  and  had  time  to  form  a  policy  in  opposi- 
tion. The  next  question  which  the  party  must  stand 


378  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

upon  must  be  the  Dis-establishment  of  the  Church. 
The  Ritualists  have  convinced  me  of  its  necessity.  I 
can't  abide  paying  money  to  make  England  Papist. 
But  don't  think  me  a  Bismarck-man,  as  I  am  sorry 
to  find  Bryce  is.  I  am  still  an  "  old  Radical,"  and  a 
worshipper  of  "Joe  Hume."  Good-bye.  J.  R.  G. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

[June  1874.] 

[Prof.  Reinhold  Pauli  (1823-1882),  the  historian, 
received  an  honorary  D.C.L.  at  Oxford  in  1874.] 

.  .  .  The  whole  world  is  hooting  at  me  for  not 
writing  to  you,  dear  E.  A.  F.,  and  my  conscience  hoots 
with  the  world.  The  fact  is,  as  you  know,  I  have  good 
long  "  flashes  of  silence  "  in  the  matter  of  correspond- 
ence to  make  up  for  the  incessant  nature  of  my  oral 
gabble,  and  this  flash  has  lasted  over  some  quiet  months. 
The  saving  in  postage  stamps  has  enabled  me  to  pay 
my  tailor's  bill  and  look  the  world  again  in  the  face  in  the 
matter  of  "  running  accounts."  But  then  unhappily 
it  seems  to  have  troubled  you  much.  Pauli  pictured 
you  as  sitting  in  the  midst  of  your  Peacocks  and  rest- 
ing your  feet  on  a  Dog  with  a  Black  Tongue,  and  swear- 
ing now  by  the  Peacocks  and  now  by  the  Dog  with  the 
Black  Tongue  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  me.  The 
picture  was  charming,  but  Pauli  is  losing  his  his- 
torical accuracy,  and  blooming  into  romance  and  new 
hats,  so  that  I  can't  trust  it.  There  was  something 
absolutely  rakish  in  his  air  after  his  Doctorate  at  Oxford, 
his  new  cut-a-way  coat,  his  dangling  little  cane,  his  well- 
cut  hair, — the  whole  stamp  of  Gottingen  and  Science 
had  disappeared.  Besides,  if  one  accepts  the  statement 
that  you  can  no  longer  write  without  Four  Peacocks 
round  your  chair,  can  it  be  true  that  precisely  at  mid- 
day the  Dog  with  the  Black  Tongue  rushes  from  the 
circle,  kills  a  sheep,  and  returns  with  the  Farmer?  If 
this  is  not  all  Pauli-Legend  I  see  in  it  the  beginning  of 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  379 

Legend.  The  Dog  with  the  Black  Tongue, — and  the 
mid-day  slaughter, — and  the  coming  of  the  dark-browed 
Farmer, — all  these  strike  one  as  Solar  and  Coxey  features. 
I  see  you  in  the  very  process  of  becoming  an  Aryan 
Myth! 

How  I  wish  I  could  have  run  down  to  meet  you  at 
Oxford  and  made  the  historical  quatuor  into  a  quintette. 
The  walk  of  the  Four  up  Headington  together  was 
killing,  as  Bryce  told  it.  Pauli  must  have  rejoiced  in 
seeing  Stubbs,  of  whom  he  spake  reverently  and  sweetly. 
Did  he  tell  you  the  curious  story  of  a  lot  of  letters  anent 
Dunstan  turning  up  in  Jaffe's  papers, — which  came  into 
the  Pauline  hands, — -just  in  time  for  him  to  hand  them 
over  to  William  the  Great  ?  The  said  Great  one  writes 
to  me  that  he  is  awfully  happy  with  his  Dunstan  Lives. 
I  want  him  to  publish  the  Lectures  on  the  Angevin 
Kings  he  is  going  to  give  unto  the  Oxford  maidens. 
Thus  may  he  be  subtly  lured  on  to  a  History  of  the 
said  A.  K.s,  and  diverted  from  the  Dictionary  making 
whereunto  Bat  Price  calleth  him. 

T'other  day  I  met  a  Mage, — a  real  Black  Artist,  — 
a  certain  Baron  Dupaty  of  Paris  who  spends  his  time 
in  luring  folk  by  Animal  Magnetism  and  his  leisure  on 
spells.  Evidently  a  good  and  venerable  person,  con- 
vinced he  should  get  the  D Is  well  in  hand  some 

day,  though  at  present  they  are  a  little  obstrepalous. 
For  the  past  year  he  has  let  the  Black  Art  alone  in  con- 
sequence of  "  a  leetle  accident"  as  he  gently  put  it. 
On  muttering  a  new  spell  which  he  had  found  in  some 
"  Arabian  book,"  four  "  blue  shapes "  came  out  of  a 
brick  wall,  the  fourth  whereof  hit  the  Baron  hard  on 
the  head  and  left  him  senseless  on  the  garden  walk,— 
before  returning  to  his  bricky  home.  He  is  a  little  dis- 
couraged, but  does  not  despair  of  finding  a  spell  which 
will  prevent  "  blue  shapes "  from  indulging  in  such 
pugnacious  propensities.  Anyhow,  it  is  quite  clear  that 
we  shall  have  to  admit  a  new  branch  of  study  into  the 
Arts-School  of  Alma  Mater. 


380  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

7  have  done  with  Little  Book  ;  but  the  printers 
print  not,  neither  do  the  Map-makers  mapmake,  nor 
the  Indexers  indicate  !  Eheu !  fugaces. — Ever  yours, 
dear  Freeman,  J.  R.  G. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
September  4,  1874. 

DEAREST  OLGA — 


(MATHEMATICAL  DIAGRAM  OF  j.  R.  G.  PROSTRATE  AT  o.  v.  G.'S  FEET.) 


Penitence,  Contrition,  and  generally  Dust  and 
Ashes  is  my  present  State  of  Mind  !  Pilgrimages  are 
recommended  just  now  for  sinners  of  this  sort  (vide 
Archbishop  Manning  passim).  May  I  make  a  Pilgrim- 
age to  the  Hill  of  Peak  ? 

I  have  already  sent  out  for  the  hardest  Peas  that 
can  be  got  in  the  neighbourhood. 

Have  you  a  coal-hole  (nay,  even  a  coal-scuttle)  into 
which  I  might  creep  on  Saturday  even  and  find  a 
Sabbath's  repose  ? 

And  do  you,  in  such  a  case,  mean  to  go  to  Church 
twice?  I  put  it  to  you,  dear  Olga,  on  Christian 
grounds.  How  can  Penitence,  Contrition,  and  Dust 
and  Ashes  go  if  the  good  people  trample,  yes,  trample 
on  the  fallen  ? 

But  in  any  case  may  I  come  (  +  the  hard  peas)  on 
Saturday? — Yours  ever,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
September  5,  1874. 

[Professor  Earle's  Gloucester  Fragments  (1861)  con- 
tains Anglo-Saxon  documents  relating  to  St.  Swithun. 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  381 

William  Topley  (1841-1894)  published  a  work  upon 
the  geology  of  the  world  in  1875,  and  was  author  of 
previous  papers  on  geology.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Would  it  bother  you  to  find 
out  from  Earle  for  me  in  what  language  he  believes 
the  Annals  of  Swithun,  as  well  as  the  earlier  Bishops' 
Roll  of  Winchester  on  which  Swithun  based  them,  to 
have  been  written  ? 

This  is  to  me  the  one  great  difficulty  of  his 
invaluable  Introduction,  which  I  have  read  over 
I  fear  to  say  how  many  times  in  the  vain  hope 
of  solving  it.  So  far  as  I  understand  it  Mr. 
Earle's  general  drift  is  that  Alfred's  Chronicle  or 
edition  of  the  Chronicle  was  the  first  English  work 
of  the  sort,  and  this  is  clearly  Pauli's  view,  and  so 
far  as  I  could  gather  in  conversation  it  is  Stubbs' 
view  too. 

On  the  other  hand  Earle  traces  the  work  of  the 
Swithun-Editor  on  the  earlier  Bishop-Roll  by  linguistic 
traces  (see  p.  xiv.  of  Introduct.),  which  would  surely 
derive  their  force  from  the  said  Swithun-Editor  writing 
in  English. 

Is  it  possible  that  he  means  this  —  the  Swithun- 
Editor — to  be  the  first  English  work  ?  Or  again  is 
there  a  chance  that  the  earlier  Bishops'  Roll  of  Winton 
was  in  English  ?  Of  course  one  would  bow  to  Earle's 
decision  on  such  a  subject,  but  it  would  cost  me  a  little 
struggle  to  accept  the  last  theory,  and  to  make 
Winchester  an  exception  among  the  multitude  of 
similar  houses  where  like  Rolls  were  being  kept  in 
Latin. 

I  own  too  that  to  me  the  "  English-prose  writing  " 
of  Alfred's  time  looks  like  a  sudden  outburst,  which 
by  dint  of  its  suddenness  and  popularity  conquered  for 
a  while  the  tendency  of  prose  literature  to  take  a 
Latin  form.  But  of  course  the  Swithun-Editor  might 
have  been  a  precursor  of  this  movement. 

So  again  as  to  the  Traditional  entries  of  the  English 


3 82  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Conquest  which  Mr.  Earle  looks  on  as  having  been 
picked  up  by  the  Swithun-Editor  (gifted  I  suppose 
with  an  antiquarian  turn  for  such  things  like  the 
author  of  the  Book  of  Chronicles),  and  stuck  on  to 
the  head  of  the  Bishops'  Roll  which  he  was  editing 
with  his  own  tail  to  it.  Were  they  in  English,  and  if 
so  does  any  trace  of  what  must  be  their  very  archaic 
English  remain,  or  were  they  translated  by  Swithun, 
or  has  their  archaic  character  disappeared  under  the 
revision  of  those  later  editors  whom  I  meet  with  in  the 
close  of  the  earlier  introduction,  and  who  give  one  the 
same  sort  of  headaches  as  the  Four  Jehovists  and 
Five  Elohists  of  the  Pentateuch — according -to- the  - 
Germans  ? 

Earle  would  really  help  me  by  a  reply  to  these 
unconscionable  questions,  as  I  am  at  work  on  the 
early  time  and  want  to  get  my  brain  clear  about 
authorities.  You  know  I  have  always  "  poked "  at 
you  for  not  going  into  this  subject  yourself.  Do  you 
keep  it  for  Appendix  ZZZ  in  vol.  v  ? 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  have  given  over  mere  com- 
piling, and  to  be  able  to  dip  again  into  the  old  days 
for  my  first  vols,  which  (pace  vestra)  I  mean  to  make 
something  more  than  a  "  compilation,"  and  in  which  I 
dare  say  you  will  give  me  credit  for  a  little  acquaint- 
ance with  "  authorities."  The  worst  of  it  is  that  as  one 
goes  along  there  are  a  thousand  by-roads  which  tempt 
one  and  which  one  has  to  pass  by  with  shut  eyes. 
However  if  one  lives  one  may  return  and  explore  them 
some  day.  Then  I  have  a  sort  of  notion  that  geology, 
and  such  considerations  of  the  early  physical  state  of 
Britain  as  geology  brings  might  do  more  for  our 
knowledge  of  pre-Roman  Britain  and  the  boundaries 
of  its  tribes,  than  can  the  wretched  warming  up  of 
Camden  and  his  followers.  Did  you  ever  see  a  paper 
of  one  Topley  on  "  The  Relation  of  the  Parish 
boundaries  in  the  S.E.  of  England  to  Great  Physical 
features  "  ?  It  is  very  curious  in  pointing  out  a  line 
of  inquiry  which  the  author  evidently  has  no  notion 


in  THE  "SHORT  HISTORY'  383 

of.      I  wish   the   dear  Dax  would   "  come   over  and 
help  us." 

Good-bye,  dear  F.,  I  am  very  busy  and  fairly  well. 
Do  you  pass  through  London  on  your  way  to  the  Two 
Romes? — Ever  yours  affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


PART   IV 

LAST    YEARS 

THE  Short  History  of  the  English  People  was  published 
at  the  end  of  1874,  and  immediately  made  a  success,  to 
which  few  parallels  can  be  found.  It  recalled  that  of 
Macaulay's  History  which  some  twenty-five  years  before 
had  taken  the  world  by  storm.  Macaulay  had  the 
advantage  of  being  already  famous ;  and  moreover, 
as  Mr.  Bryce  remarks,  of  writing  upon  a  scale  which 
admitted  of  abundant  anecdote  and  illustration ;  whereas 
Green  had  the  difficult  problem  of  combining  the 
greatest  possible  condensation  with  undiminished  anima- 
tion of  narrative.  The  success  was  clearly  due,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  the  literary  instinct  which  enabled  him 
to  satisfy  the  conditions  thus  impdsed.  "  I  am  going," 
he  writes  in  a  letter  from  St.  Philip's,  "  to  send  Alford 
the  opening  of  my  Angevin  chapter  dished  up  on  a 
paper,  but  substantially  the  same  as  I  want  it  in  my 
book.  I  hope  he  will  take  it,  as  I  shall  never  be  able 
to  judge  its  readability  (the  thing  I  care  about)  till  I 
see  it  in  type.  Cook  thinks  that  sort  of  anticipation  of 
oneself  bad — but  I  am  wholly  French  on  the  question, 
as  I  am  on  most  literary  questions.  It  seems  to  me 
that  on  all  points  of  literary  art  we  have  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  French  Gamaliels."  The  opinion  is,  I  think, 
characteristic.  Anyhow  the  clear  and  graceful  style, 
the  skill  with  which  the  materials  are  grouped,  and 


PART  iv  LAST  YEARS  385 

the  singular  vivacity  which  shows  the  sustained 
interest  of  the  writer,  enabled  him  to  strike  out 
the  most  effective  method  of  presentation.  "  The 
book,"  says  Mr.  Bryce,  "  was  philosophical  enough  for 
scholars,  and  popular  enough  for  schoolboys."  I  shall 
not  intrude  any  criticism  of  my  own,  but  it  may  be 
well  to  give  a  judgment  pronounced  by  the  highest 
authority.  "  Green,"  wrote  the  late  Bishop  Stubbs, 
"  possessed  in  no  scanty  measure  all  the  gifts  that 
contribute  to  the  making  of  a  great  historian.  He 
combined,  so  far  as  the  history  of  England  is  concerned, 
a  complete  and  firm  grasp  of  the  subject  in  its  unity  and 
integrity,  with  a  wonderful  command  of  details  and  a_ 
thorough  sense  of  perspective  and  proportion.  All  his 
work  was  real  and  original  work  ;  few  people  besides 
those  who  knew  him  well  would  see,  under  the  charm- 
ing ease  and  vivacity  of  his  style,  the  deep  research  and 
sustained  industry  of  the  laborious  student.  But  it  was 
so  ;  there  was  no  department  of  our  national  records 
that  he  had  not  studied,  and  I  think  I  may  say 
mastered.  Hence,  I  think,  the  unity  of  his  dramatic 
scenes  and  the  cogency  of  his  historical  arguments. 
Like  other  people,  he  made  mistakes  sometimes  ;  but 
scarcely  ever  does  the  correction  of  his  mistakes  affect 
either  the  essence  of  the  picture  or  the  force  of  the 
argument.  And  in  him  the  desire  of  stating  and  point- 
ing the  truth  of  history  was  as  strong  as  the  wish  to 
make  both  his  pictures  and  his  arguments  strong  and 
forcible.  He  never  treated  an  opposing  view  with  in- 
tolerance and  contumely  ;  his  handling  of  controversial 
matter  was  exemplary.  And  then,  to  add  still  more  to 
the  debt  we  owe  him,  there  is  the  wonderful  simplicity 
and  beauty  of  the  way  he  tells  his  tale,  which  more  than 
anything  else  has  served  to  make  English  history  a 
popular  and,  as  it  ought  to  be,  if  not  the  first  at  least  the 

2  C 


3 86  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

second  study  of  all  Englishmen."  Critics  at  the  time 
gave  a  very  cordial  welcome  to  the  history,  and  more  or 
less  anticipated  this  estimate.  There  was,  however,  one 
exception  to  which  some  reference  will  be  found  in  the 
following  letters.  Two  Articles  in  Prater's  Magazine 
(September  and  December  1875)  contained  a  long  list 
of  errors.  The  author  inferred  that  Green  was  both 
careless  and  superficial,  and  that  the  chorus  of  praise 
came  from  shallow  admirers,  or  from  the  "  mutual 
admiration  society"  constituted,  as  it  was  supposed,  by 
Green,  Freeman,  Stubbs,  and  their  allies.  The  critic  hit 
real  blots,  though,  as  Stubbs  says  in  the  above  passage, 
the  errors  affected  the  surface  and  not  the  structure 
of  the  book.  Many  of  them  were  such  as  could  be 
remedied  in  a  list  of  errata  saying,  "  read  John  for 
William,"  or  "January  for  December,"  and  Mr.  Morley, 
to  whom  the  article  had  been  offered  for  the  Fortnightly 
Review,  told  the  author  that  instead  of  publishing  it 
as  a  criticism  he  ought  to  send  it  to  Green  as  a  useful  list 
of  corrections  for  the  next  edition.  I  need  only  remark 
that  the  circumstances  under  which  the  book  was 
written  made  many  slips  almost  inevitable.  Green's 
want  of  verbal  memory  and  his  absence  from  English 
libraries  made  complete  accuracy  impossible.  He  took 
the  proper  course  ;  corrected  the  mistakes  which  had 
been  pointed  out,  and  was  more  careful  in  his  later 
work.  Mr.  Bryce  gives  a  scale  in  which  Green  is  placed 
above  Milman  for  accuracy,  bracketed  as  equal  with 
Macaulay,  and  put  a  little  below  Grote.  Ranke  and 
Thirlwall,  followed  by  Gibbon  and  Carlyle,  form  a  first 
class. 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  the  Short  History  Green 
undertook  a  corrected  and  much  enlarged  edition.  This 
became  the  History  of  the  English  People,  which  appeared 
in  four  volumes  in  1 8 77, 1878, 1879,  and  1880.  It  gained 


iv  LAST  YEARS  387 

in  accuracy  and  solidity,  and  gives  his  latest  views  upon 
interesting  questions.  If  it  loses  something  in  freshness 
a  sufficient  explanation  is  suggested  by  the  labour  in- 
volved in  a  thorough  rewriting  under  circumstances 
which  will  presently  appear.  One  motive  for  carrying 
out  this  task  must  be  explained.  The  success  of  the 
Short  History  had  for  the  time  raised  Green  above  all 
pecuniary  difficulty  ;  but  the  income  derivable  from 
such  a  source  was  precarious  ;  he  had  no  other  resources, 
and  the  state  of  his  health  made  it  important  that  he 
should  not  be  dependent  upon  immediately  profitable 
work.  His  marriage  in  1877  increased  the  importance 
of  making  provision  for  the  future.  Now,  the  Short 
History  had  made  as  marked  a  success  in  America  as  in 
England.  It  was  in  the  portmanteau  of  every  traveller 
who  came  to  us  across  the  Atlantic.  At  this  time, 
however,  an  English  author  had  no  legal  copyright  in 
the  United  States.  Messrs.  Harper,  who  had  there 
reprinted  the  book  and  had  become  the  sole  publishers, 
did  not  consider  themselves  bound  to  pay  any  royalty 
to  the  author.  They  promised,  however,  to  pay 
a  royalty  if  Green  would  undertake  to  bring  out 
a  revised  edition.  Green,  therefore,  accepted  the 
laborious  task  of  going  over  the  whole  ground  again, 
a  duty  which  was  made  imperative  by  his  fastidious 
desire  for  thoroughness  ;  and  was  thus  prevented  from 
turning  to  account  the  mass  of  materials  already  collected 
for  his  proposed  history  of  the  Angevin  Kings.  The 
amount  of  reading  and  thought  given  to  this  collection 
surprises  even  those  who  know  his  work  well.  His 
notes  cover  the  religious  revival,  the  literature,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  political  history  of  the  time  of  Henry  I. 
and  Stephen,  and  the  lives  of  the  early  Counts  of  Anjou. 
A  number  of  carefully  finished  passages,  some  of  the 
more  important  written  many  times  over,  show  the 


388  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

grandeur  of  his  scheme.  One  very  interesting  point 
is  the  criticism  of  early  sources  which,  written  without 
the  light  of  modern  French  research,  anticipates  in 
great  measure  the  conclusions  of  later  editors  of  the 
Angevin  Chronicles.  Unfortunately  the  state  of  Green's 
health  forced  him  to  abandon  the  plan  for  a  revised 
version  of  the  Short  History,  and  no  such  edition  was 
brought  out  during  his  life. 

Meanwhile  Green  had  become  famous,  and  during 
the  following  years  had  such  satisfaction  as  could  be 
derived  from  a  general  recognition  of  his  services  to 
history.1  "  It  was  delightful  to  see,"  writes  Mr. 
Humphry  Ward,  "how  he  took  the  startling  success  of 
the  Short  History.  Those  who  had  read  the  proof-sheets 
had  to  some  extent  prepared  him  to  expect  a  success, 
but  they  were  not  unanimous,  and  the  actual  facts  were 
beyond  all  that  any  of  us  had  hoped  for.  Ill  as  he  was, 
it  was  an  immense  comfort  to  him  to  be  relieved  from 
anxiety  as  to  ways  and  means  ;  and  he  was  naturally  not 
insensible  to  such  public  recognition  as  he  thus  received 
after  fifteen  years  of  obscure  work.  He  was  pleased 
when  the  committee  of  the  Athen<eum  elected  him 
'  under  Rule  II.,'  and  when  his  own  college  (where  he 
had  been  so  unhappy)  elected  him  an  honorary  fellow. 
But  it  is  certain  that  his  chief  pleasure  came  from  the 
new  opportunities  for  work,  and  for  starting  other  people 
in  schemes  which  this  first  great  success  had  given  him. 
Now  the  world  is  a  little  overdone  with  historical  and 
literary  '  series,' '  epochs,'  '  primers,'  and  what  not ;  but 
in  the  early  seventies  it  was  a  new  thing,  and  Green 
may  almost  be  called  the  inventor  of  it.  Nay,  it  was 
when  I  was  an  undergraduate  (perhaps  in  1868)  that 

1  He  had  been  examiner  in  the  History  School  at  Oxford  in  1874,  and  was 
elected  honorary  fellow  of  Jesus  in  1877.  In  1876  he  was  made  a  member  of  the 
Athenaeum,  and  a  corresponding  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 
In  1878  he  received  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  at  Edinburgh. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  389 

he  drew  up  an  elaborate  scheme  for  a  sort  of  '  Heroes 
of  the  Nations'  series,  of  which  I  was  to  write  one. 
Nothing  came  of  it,  but  it  exists  now,  done  by  other 
hands." 

His  influence  upon  younger  students  is  described  by 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.  "  There  was  in  him  a  per- 
petual eagerness,  an  inexhaustible  power  of  knowledge, 
that  were  ever  putting  idler  or  emptier  minds  to  shame. 
You  brought  him  the  subject  of  an  article,  the  sketch 
of  a  literary  paper.  He  would  begin  to  turn  it  over, 
to  run  through  the  reading  it  involved.  And  as  he 
grew  keener  and  talked  faster,  as  the  flow  of  memory 
broadened,  and  the  names  of  books  came  rattling  out  as 
the  mere  first  preliminaries  of  the  subject,  one  must 
either  fly  him  at  once  so  as  to  get  the  article  written  at 
all,  or  one  must  yield  to  the  fascination  and  the  stimulus, 
and  go  away  abashed  to  begin  one's  work  over  again. 
Well  do  I  remember  bringing  him  the  sketch  of  a 
literature  primer  for  his  criticism,  some  time,  I  imagine, 
in  the  winter  of  1873-74,  just  before  the  coming  out  of 
the  Short  History.  We  found  him  in  his  bachelor  rooms 
in  Beaumont  Street  ;  for  his  most  helpful,  most  happy 
marriage  did  not  take  place  till  1877.  I  can  see  now 
the  dingy  rooms  lined  with  books,  and  Mr.  Green 

OJ 

pacing  up  and  down,  the  great  brow  dwarfing  the  small 
face.  He  looked  at  my  sketch;  he  grew  indignant 
with  it,  he  threw  it  aside.  He  proceeded  to  write  the 
book  himself,  as  he  walked  and  talked.  As  far  as  I 
can  remember,  no  more  masterly  outline  of  a  great 
subject  was  ever  drawn.  Meanwhile  the  tyro  who  had 
brought  the  sketch  sat  dumb,  with  her  'eye  on  the 
object '  at  last.  The  result  for  a  moment  was  a  deep 
and  wholesome  melancholy  ;  but  it  was  one  of  those 
discouragements  that  react,  that  spur  and  stimulate. 
"  But  I  have  many  other  recollections  of  Mr.  Green's 


390  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

talk  to  put  beside  this  somewhat  scathing  experience,— 
recollections  of  pure  joy.  Once,  in  Notre  Dame, — the 
dim  rose-pierced  gloom  of  Notre  Dame, — we  stood  beside 
him,  while  there  came  from  him  a  history  of  what  the 
church  had  seen.  He  poured  it  out  quite  simply, — 
scenes  from  the  Middle  Age,  from  Louis  XIV.,  from  the 
Revolution, — repeopling  the  dark  space  before  us  by 
that  mingled  magic  of  memory  and  imagination  in 
which  he  was  unrivalled.  And  for  those  who  heard  him 
there,  his  own  dear  ghost  lives  henceforward  among  the 
older  phantoms  of  the  church." 

Mrs.  Ward,  I  am  sure,  will  accept  a  remark  suggested 
by  her  "  scathing  experience."  Green  was  always  eager 
to  encourage  as  well  as  to  "spur."  So  early  as  1859 
he  says  in  a  diary  that  he  has  found  some  unexpected 
merits  in  a  work  which  he  had  been  asked  to  criticise. 
"  I  fear,"  he  adds,  "  I  should  be  too  kindly  for  a  critic. 
As  I  work  out  my  criticisms,  I  discover  beauties  and 
forget  the  faults.  In  fact,  the  dullest  men  improve 
under  the  culture  of  the  pen.  The  effort  of  composi- 
tion is  a  net  that  drags  up  much  mud,  but  a  grain  or 
two  of  fine  gold  with  it.  There  is  not  a  mind  in  the 
world  that  has  not  something  worth  extraction  in  it." 
This  eager  sympathy  with  the  aspirations  of  beginners 
mixed  with  the  bracing  criticism  which  it  might  occa- 
sionally be  well  to  administer. 

In  1876  Green  took  part  in  the  political  agitation  of 
the  day.  He  had  been  keenly  interested,  as  has  been 
seen,  in  the  elections  of  1868,  and  never  ceased  to 
watch  the  course  of  events.  The  "  Eastern  Question 
Association  "  was  now  formed  in  order  to  oppose  the 
warlike  tendencies  of  the  Conservative  ministry.  Green 
was  chosen  a  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Association,  and  served  also  on  a  literary  sub- 
committee of  five,  which  included  William  Morris  and 


iv  LAST  YEARS 


391 


Mr.  Stopford  Brooke.  Its  function  was  to  draw  up 
a  manifesto  convoking  the  conference  which  met  in 
December  1876.  The  General  Committee  continued 
to  meet  until  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  (June  1878),  and 
Green  took  such  part  in  its  proceedings  as  was  con- 
sistent with  his  weak  health  and  frequent  absence  from 
England.  The  intensely  patriotic  feeling  which  mani- 
fests itself  in  his  history  of  older  England  was  shown 
also  throughout  his  life  by  the  closeness  with  which  he 
followed  the  evolution  of  the  contemporary  history. 
It  was  a  delight  to  him  to  touch  English  soil  after 
his  winters  abroad.  "  We  English  people,"  he  would 
say,  "live  in  free  human  air."  During  his  times  of 
exile  he  kept  up  his  knowledge  of  current  affairs,  and 
would  never  open  his  letters  until  he  had  gone  through 
the  newspapers.  His  patriotism,  indeed,  strengthened 
instead  of  weakening  opinions  repudiated  by  the  party 
which  would  arrogate  to  itself  the  sole  possession  of 
patriotic  feeling.  He  had  an  especially  strong  feeling 
upon  the  Irish  question.  "  He  was  the  first  Home 
Ruler  I  ever  saw,"  says  Mr.  Bryce  ;  "  he  was  a  Home 
Ruler  when  no  one  else  thought  at  all  about  it."  He 
sympathised  with  the  spirit  of  Irish  nationality.  "  A 
State,"  he  would  say,  "  is  accidental ;  it  can  be  made  or 
unmade  ;  but  a  nation  is  something  real  which  can  be 
neither  made  nor  destroyed."  He  had  once  planned  a 
history  of  Ireland,  but  abandoned  the  idea  because  the 
continuous  record  of  misery  and  misgovernment  was 
too  painful  to  contemplate.  He  held  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  devise  a  system  which  would  make  the  union 
of  the  countries  compatible  with  the  welfare,  and  in 
harmony  with  the  aspirations  of  the  weaker  ;  but  he 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  policy  of  the  English  Liberals 
of  his  time.  Though  in  England  he  was  in  favour  of  a 
secular  system  of  education,  he  thought  that  the  Irish 


392  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Catholics  had  a  right  to  the  religious  system  which  they 
preferred.  He  was  profoundly  affected  by  the  murder 
of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  (June  1882),  thinking  that 
the  English  might  be  moved  to  blind  resentment  by  an 
act  for  which  the  Irish  people  were  not  really  respon- 
sible ;  and  during  his  last  illness  he  denounced  with  his 
old  ardour  the  speech  in  which  W.  E.  Forster  (at  the 
opening  of  the  session  of  1883)  defended  coercion.  It 
would  even  be  better,  he  held,  for  both  countries  that 
England  should  grant  complete  independence  to  Ireland 
than  hold  it  by  military  force.  To  Green,  in  short, 
patriotism  seemed  to  imply  the  most  lively  sensibility 
to  the  morality  of  the  policy  dictated,  and  he  was  pro- 
portionally indignant  at  attempts  to  enlist  patriotic 
sentiment  in  the  cause  of  what  he  regarded  as  oppres- 
sion of  other  nations. 

I  have  now  to  speak  briefly  of  the  last  period  of 
Green's  life.  The  correspondence  becomes  scanty  ; 
partly  because  he  was  unequal  to  the  labour,  and 
partly  because  he  could  devolve  it  upon  another.  In 
January  1877  he  became  engaged  to  Alice,  daughter 
of  E.  A.  Stopford,  Archdeacon  of  Meath,  and  their 
marriage  took  place  in  the  following  June.  A  bio- 
grapher who  has  to  record  a  happy  marriage  must 
always,  I  fancy,  be  painfully  conscious  of  the  utter 
inadequacy  of  his  language  in  speaking  of  its  results, 
even  should  he  possess  a  far  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  facts  than  can  often  be  accessible,  and  be  freed 
by  time  and  circumstance  from  obligations  to  reticence. 
In  the  present  case  my  duty  is  clear.  I  am  bound  to 
give  certain  facts,  knowledge  of  which  is  essential  to 
a  fair  appreciation  of  Green's  life  and  character.  To 
make  any  comment  upon  them  would  be  to  insult  the 
intelligence  of  my  readers.  I  may  be  permitted,  how- 
ever, to  say  this  much  ;  the  story  which  I  have  to  tell 


iv  LAST  YEARS 


393 


is  that  of  a  brave  man's  struggle  to  do  his  work  to  the 
last,  carried  on  with  unsurpassable  gallantry  against  the 
most  depressing  difficulties,  and  no  one  can  fail  to  draw 
the  inevitable  inference  that  he  was  cheered  and  sup- 
ported throughout  by  a  devotion  worthy  of  its  object. 

At  the  time  of  Green's  marriage  he  thought  himself 
rather  better,  but  was  aware  of  the  precarious  tenure 
upon  which  his  life  must  be  henceforth  held.  An 
attack  of  haemorrhage  occurred  in  July  ;  and  he  and 
his  wife  returned  to  25  Connaught  Street,  to  which 
he  had  moved  from  Beaumont  Street.  There  they 
settled  for  the  rest  of  the  year  in  "  four  little  rooms 
over  a  decorator's  shop."  The  first  volume  of  the 
longer  history  had  been  published  in  January  ;  and  he 
now  set  to  work  upon  the  second.  He  took  constant 
pleasure  in  strolls  with  his  wife  in  Hyde  Park,  and 
they  occasionally  paid  visits  to  Macmillan's  house  in 
Streatham,  and  made  more  distant  flights  to  friends  in 
the  country.  They  went  to  the  Humphry  Wards  at 
Oxford  ;  where  Green  took  his  wife  round  and  showed 
her  "  all  English  history  from  Offa  to  Newman."  He 
would  not  take  her  to  his  old  college,  because  its 
associations  with  the  undergraduate  days  were  too 
painful  ;  but  he  displayed  the  beauties  of  Magdalen, 
and  pointed  out  the  place  where  as  a  schoolboy  he  had 
dared  to  interrupt  Dr.  Mozley's  walk  by  inquiring 
how  it  could  be  lawful  for  Christians  to  eat  black 
puddings,  a  practice  apparently  forbidden  by  Apostolic 
authority.  In  October  they  visited  Tennyson  at  Aid- 
worth  ;  and  the  poet  received  them  with  abundant 
kindliness  and  sympathy.  "  You're  a  jolly,  vivid 
man,"  he  said  to  Green  ;  "  and  I'm  glad  to  have 
known  you  ;  you're  as  vivid  as  lightning."  Green 
gave  some  advice  as  to  authorities  for  "  Becket,"  then 
in  process  of  composition. 


394  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Green  finally  accomplished  the  second  volume  of 
the  history  at  the  end  of  the  year  ;  and  then  escaped 
to  Capri,  which  was  supposed  to  have  a  more  favour- 
able climate  than  the  Riviera.  The  place  was  cheap 
and  simple.  There  was  only  one  road  and  one 
carriage,  and  there  were  four  cows  kept  in  Roman 
cellars.  In  stormy  weather,  a  pig  hanging  in  a 
butcher's  shop  represented  the  whole  stock  of  pro- 
visions for  a  week,  and  was  converted  into  "  veal 
cutlets  "  and  "  stewed  lamb  "  by  the  skill  of  the  cook. 
Green  had  to  live  mainly  upon  biscuits  and  puddings 
prepared  by  Mrs.  Green  ;  and  the  room  was  bare  and 
without  even  an  easy-chair.  The  journey  had  been 
bitterly  cold  ;  he  was  exhausted  by  the  effort  of  finish- 
ing his  volume,  and  he  was  ill  throughout  the  spring. 
There  were  no  other  visitors,  except  one  or  two  invalids, 
and  no  doctor  available.  Green  worked  steadily  at 
his  history,  and  had  brought  out  a  large  case  of  books. 
He  was  invariably  patient  and  gentle,  and  never  cooled 
in  his  political  and  historical  enthusiasms.  When  he 
felt  a  tendency  to  depression,  he  would  ask  for  "  a  stiff 
book"  ;  he  wanted  "something  to  set  his  teeth  into." 
Having  struggled  through  the  winter,  the  Greens 
returned  through  Rome.  There  in  March  he  was 
taken  ill  and  was  moved  to  Florence,  where  he  fortun- 
ately met  the  Macmillans,  who  nursed  him  with  their 
usual  kindness.  For  some  time  he  was  not  expected 
to  live,  but  by  the  end  of  April  he  was  well  enough 
to  return  to  London.  In  the  autumn  the  Greens 
moved  to  50  Welbeck  Street,  where  they  occupied 
part  of  the  house  of  Dr.  Lauder  Brunton,  Mrs.  Green's 
brother-in-law.  His  health  so  far  improved  that  in 
this  and  the  following  summer  he  was  able  to  pay  a 
few  visits.  He  went  to  Edinburgh  in  1878  to  receive 
the  LL.D.  degree,  and  on  the  way  saw  his  old  friend, 


iv  LAST  YEARS  395 

Canon  Taylor,  at  Settrington.  Among  other  friends 
of  those  years  were  Lord  Portsmouth,  Lord  Carnarvon, 
Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff,  Lord  Selborne,  Mr. 
Goschen,  Sir  Louis  Mallet,  Laurence  Oliphant,  and 
Matthew  Arnold.  He  enjoyed  the  company  of  such 
friends,  and  the  charm  of  his  conversation  secured  a 
warm  welcome  from  every  one ;  but  he  found  the 
strain  upon  his  strength  to  be  dangerous.  He  returned 
therefore  to  London,  where  he  worked  steadily  at  his 
book.  The  life  was  almost  as  solitary  as  at  Capri, 
except  an  occasional  afternoon  at  the  Athenseum.  At 
last  the  third  volume  was  finished,  and  in  January 
1879  the  Greens  went  abroad  again  and  spent  the  rest 
of  the  winter  at  Mentone,  Rapallo,  and  Florence.  At 
Florence  they  met  and  made  friends  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
John  Addington  Symonds;  and  Green  was  cheered  by 
the  news  that  5000  copies  of  the  two  first  volumes  had 
been  sold  in  America,  and  produced  a  cheque  for  £,220. 
They  returned  to  London  in  the  spring,  and  Green 
drew  up  a  scheme  for  the  Geography  of  the  British  Isles 
to  provide  occupation  for  his  wife.  The  book  appeared 
under  their  joint  names  at  the  end  of  the  year.  He 
was  now  struggling  with  the  fourth,  and  happily  last, 
volume  of  the  history.  He  was  afraid  to  stay  in 
London  as  long  as  he  had  done  in  previous  years,  and 
by  a  great  effort,  and  in  spite  of  increasing  weakness, 
he  managed  to  finish  his  task  in  the  autumn.  He 
was  able  to  reach  Capri  at  the  beginning  of  November, 
having  travelled  by  the  Rhine  to  Verona  and  Venice, 
and  stayed  there  till  May.  The  room  had  been 
improved  by  a  friend's  gift  of  a  plain  sofa  ;  but  the 
life  was  hard.  The  winter  was  bitter  beyond  pre- 
cedent ;  snow  fell  in  Capri,  the  first  time  for  a  century ; 
there  were  violent  storms,  and  the  water-supply  had 
given  out.  The  image  of  the  patron  saint  was  put  up 


396  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

in  the  church,  and  saluted  with  crackers.  When  he 
had  brought  rain  he  was  put  back  in  the  sacristy.  He 
then  stopped  the  rain,  but  left  a  bitter  north  wind. 
Green  suffered,  in  spite  of  all  attempts  to  keep  out  the 
draughts.  The  companionship  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Isaac 
Taylor  was  a  pleasant  relief  to  the  solitude,  though 
an  attack  of  scarlet  fever,  from  which  their  daughter 
suffered,  caused  some  anxiety  and  trouble. 

The  labours  of  the  last  few  years  had  at  last,  in 
spite  of  all  difficulties,  set  Green  at  liberty.  The 
fourth  volume  of  the  history  appeared  in  January 
1880.  He  might  now  take  up  the  schemes  for  which 
he  had  prepared  himself  by  collecting  the  materials  to 
which  his  imaginative  sympathy  would  give  form  and 
colour.  Unhappily,  the  labours  had  left  their  mark ;  his 
strength  had  seriously  decreased  ;  and  any  plan  which 
he  adopted  must  be  framed  with  the  knowledge  that 
his  time  for  work  was  narrowly  limited.  Neverthe- 
less, he  set  to  work  with  all  his  remaining  energy. 
The  spring  was  again  one  of  the  worst  on  record  ;  but 
Green  revived  a  little,  and  began  his  labours  upon 
the  earliest  period  of  English  history.  He  had  set  his 
wife  to  work  upon  a  scheme  which  he  had  devised  for 
a  history  of  Greece.  He  was  so  much  pleased  with  her 
notes  that  he  promoted  her  to  co-operate  in  his  own 
task.  She  read  and  noted  for  the  histories,  and  dis- 
cussed results  with  him  ;  varying  their  occupation  by 
strolls  in  the  vineyards  in  search  of  Roman  antiquities. 
Towards  May  they  returned  to  England  and  settled  to 
work  through  the  summer.  He  now  occupied  a  house 
which  had  been  previously  taken  at  14  Kensington 
Square.  Green  was  overjoyed  to  escape  at  last  from 
the  constant  discomforts  of  a  life  in  lodgings  or  apart- 
ments, amidst  which  his  work  had  hitherto  been  done. 
His  delight  in  having  at  last  a  house  of  his  own,  won 


iv  LAST  YEARS 


397 


by  the  strenuous  labour  of  the  last  years,  was  pathetic. 
This  house  was  especially  associated  with  his  memory 
in  the  minds  of  many  friends.  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
recalls  "  the  afternoons  in  his  later  years,  when  the 
pretty  house  in  Kensington  Square  was  the  centre  of  a 
small  society  such  as  England  produces  much  more 
rarely  than  France.  Mr.  Lecky  came — Sir  Henry 
Maine,  Mr.  Freeman,  Mr.  Bryce,  Bishop  Stubbs  some- 
times, Mr.  Stopford  Brooke,  and  many  more.  It  was 
the  talk  of  equals,  ranging  the  widest  horizons,  started 
and  sustained  by  the  energy,  the  undauntedness  of  a 
dying  man.  There  in  the  corner  of  the  sofa  sat  the 
thin  wasted  form,  life  flashing  from  the  eyes,  breathing 
from  the  merry  or  eloquent  lips,  beneath  the  very 
shadow  and  seal  of  death — the  eternal  protesting  life 
of  the  intelligence.  His  talk  gave  perpetually.  Much 
of  the  previous  talk  of  the  world  has  not  been  a  'giving 
but  a  gathering  and  plundering  talk.  .  .  .  But  Mr. 
Green's  was  talk  of  the  best  kind,  abundant,  witty, 
disinterested ;  and  his  poet's  instinct  for  the  lives 
and  thoughts  of  others,  his  quick  imagination,  his 
humorous  and  human  curiosity  about  all  sorts  and 
sides  of  things  made  pose  and  pedantry  impossible  to 
him.  He  could  be  extravagant  and  provoking  ;  it  was 
always  easy  to  set  him  on  edge,  and  call  up  a  mood  of 
irritation  and  paradox.  But  as  he  grew  happier,  as 
success  and  fame  came  to  him,  he  grew  gentler  and 
more  pliable.  .  .  .  Among  all  that  was  lost  by  his 
early  death  ...  let  us  put  it  on  record  that  we  in 
London,  where  conversation  flourishes  so  little  and  so 
hardly — lost  also  a  great  talker,  one  capable  of  stirring 
in  his  fellows  all  human  and  delightful  energies,  not 
only  by  his  pen  but  by  his  word  and  smile  and  bodily 
self." 

It  had  been  suggested  that  a  winter  in  Egypt  might 


398  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

still  raise  Green  to  a  better  state  of  health.  It  was 
thought  best  to  save  fatigue  by  making  the  sea  voyage. 
Misfortunes  followed.  A  gale  took  the  ship  unpre- 
pared in  the  Bay  of  Biscay.  She  was  apparently, 
though  not  really,  in  danger  for  some  time  ;  cabins 
and  state-rooms  were  flooded  ;  luggage  swamped  ;  and 
the  passengers  exposed  to  the  utmost  discomfort. 
Green  was  not  in  a  state  to  bear  hardships.  When 
Egypt  was  reached,  Cairo  proved  to  be  unhealthy,  and 
the  Greens  proceeded  to  Luxor.  A  guide  was  trying 
to  exhibit  a  tomb  by  help  of  a  Roman  candle.  It  did 
not  go  off,  and  Green  took  it  from  his  hand.  The 
thing  then  proved  to  be  a  rocket.  It  exploded,  and 
burnt  Green's  arm  from  the  elbow  to  the  fingers.  He 
had  to  ride  back  three  hours  in  burning  heat,  and  was 
for  long  laid  up  by  the  shock.  He  still  went  on 
working,  though  Mrs.  Green  had  to  do  all  the  writing. 
In  January  1881  heat  became  excessive,  and  the  ther- 
mometer rose  to  115°.  The  days  were  cloudless  and 
endless,  and  the  nights  were  never  cool.  Green  con- 
tinued to  work  in  the  mornings  ;  but  any  attempt  to 
see  sights  prostrated  him.  No  escape  was  possible,  till 
in  February  some  friends  returning  to  Cairo  offered  a 
place  in  their  dharbeeyah.  The  voyage  from  Luxor 
lasted  five  weeks,  and  was  a  relief  after  the  dust  of 
Luxor.  The  Italian  ports  were  reported  to  be  in 
quarantine,  owing  to  a  fear  of  cholera ;  and  the  Greens 
sailed  for  Marseilles  at  the  end  of  March.  It  became 
cold,  and  at  Avignon  he  became  very  ill.  He  was 
impatient  to  be  at  home,  and  reached  London  in  April. 
His  state  was  then  so  serious  that  Andrew  Clark  one 
evening  told  Mrs.  Green  that  he  could  not  live  for 
six  weeks.  "  I  have  so  much  work  to  do  !  "  Green 
happened  to  say  that  night,  "  if  I  could  only  finish 
my  work !  "  Mrs.  Green  spent  the  night  in  drawing 


iv  LAST  YEARS  399 

up  a  scheme  which  might  relieve  his  anxiety.  The 
work  was  to  be  so  arranged  that,  if  completed,  it 
might  be  separately  published  ;  and  if  broken  oft, 
might  be  incorporated  in  the  previous  work.  Green, 
upon  seeing  this  next  morning,  understood  at  once  why 
the  suggestion  was  made  and  began  to  carry  out  the 
plan  the  same  day.  For  many  weeks  he  could  not 
sit  up  or  take  solid  food.  He  was  unable  to  hold  a 
pen,  or  even  to  make  pencil  corrections  on  a  proof. 
At  intervals  he  could  dictate  for  a  short  time,  or  go 
through  references  with  his  wife's  help.  He  dictated 
as  he  talked,  very  rapidly,  and  with  perfect  clearness 
and  precision.  He  knew  every  book  in  his  library 
intimately,  and  could  at  once  tell  where  to  look  for  the 
passages  required.  He  would  constantly  throw  aside  a 
chapter,  and  dictate  the  substance  over  again  without 
referring  to  the  discarded  matter.  The  motive  for 
such  changes  was  not  the  need  of  altering  the  wording, 
but  of  improving  the  general  arrangement.  There 
are  as  many  as  eight  or  ten  different  proofs  of  parts  of 
the  book.  Much  of  it  was  wholly  rewritten  five  times. 
He  was  unwearied  in  correcting,  and  never  sent  slips 
to  press  till  he  had  seen  them  three  times.  By  August 
500  pages  were  printed  of  the  work  done  in  Egypt 
and  since  his  return.  When  the  last  proof  had  been 
corrected,  a  discovery  was  made  about  a  certain  ^Sthel- 
wald.  Wearied  as  he  was,  Green  spent  two  more 
days  in  work  rather  than  leave  the  incorrect  statement. 
The  Making  of  England  was  finally  prepared  for 
publication  before  the  winter.  It  appeared  in  January 
1882.  This  extraordinary  achievement  had  tried  his 
strength  to  the  uttermost.  For  weeks  he  was  unable 
to  leave  the  house,  though  occasionally  he  could  take 
a  short  drive  in  the  Park.  The  visits  of  his  friends 
were  his  great  recreation,  but  he  was  only  able  to  see 


400  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

one  at  a  time.  In  the  autumn  he  started  for  a  winter 
at  Mentone.  His  skilful  doctor  and  devoted  friend, 
Dr.,  now  Sir  Lauder,  Brunton,  travelled  with  him 
as  far  as  Boulogne,  where  he  rested  for  a  time  in 
order  to  gather  strength  for  the  further  journey. 
He  began  already  to  work  upon  the  Conquest  of 
England,  but  could  rarely  leave  his  room.  Sir 
Lauder  Brunton  came  back  again  in  October  to  super- 
intend the  journey  to  Mentone.  There  he  settled 
the  Greens  in  the  Villa  S.  Nicolas.  They  returned 
again  to  a  solitary  life.  Green  read  Shakespeare  and 
Scott  constantly  in  these  years.  In  January  1882  he 
had  the  pleasure  of  visits  from  the  Humphry  Wards 
and  the  Macmillans.  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  had 
spoken  of  a  scheme  for  a  Spanish  history  ;  and  Mrs. 
Green,  by  her  husband's  desire,  visited  every  library  on 
the  coast  as  far  as  Nice  to  discover  books  upon  the 
subject.  He  had  devised  a  scheme  for  the  book  by 
the  time  of  Mrs.  Ward's  arrival ;  though,  as  it  turned 
out,  her  change  of  intentions  prevented  it  from  being 
turned  to  account.  Visits,  however,  exhausted  him, 
and  he  had  to  return  to  solitude.  In  January  1882 
he  received  the  Making  of  England}-  Some  remarks 
upon  it  by  a  friend  disheartened  him  so  much  that  for 
six  weeks  he  was  unable  to  work.  He  started  again 
in  March ;  when  Mrs.  Green  was  disabled  as  an 
amanuensis  by  an  attack  of  "  writer's  cramp  "  in  both 
hands.  He  could  dictate  to  no  one  else,  and  she  at 
last  succeeded  in  doing  a  little  with  her  left  hand. 
He  stopped  her  one  day  when  she  was  throwing  away 
a  sheet  upon  which  she  had  drawn  up  some  notes  for 

1  In  1882  it  was  proposed  to  give  him  an  honorary  degree  at  his  own  university. 
For  some  reason,  although  the  proposal  was  supported  by  some  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished members  of  the  council,  it  was  not  carried.  His  friends  understood  that 
it  was  only  postponed  till  the  following  year.  It  was  then  too  late,  and  he  had 
suffered  the  disappointment. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  401 

his  use.  "Whenever  I  think  I  can  do  no  more,"  he 
said,  "  I  look  at  that  and  go  on."  They  were  in 
Kensington  Square  again  for  a  few  months  during 
the  summer. 

The  last  winter  (1882-83)  was  again  spent  at  the 
Villa  S.  Nicolas.  The  rooms  had  been  made  more 
cheerful  by  a  few  little  ornaments  ;  and  Green  met 
depressing  moods  by  a  curiously  characteristic  device. 
He  could  amuse  himself  by  a  childlike  "  make-believe." 
In  the  evening,  he  would  pretend  solemnly  to  be 
"  at  home,"  draw  up  his  chair  gravely,  and  warm  his 
toes  at  the  unlighted  hearth.  He  was  carrying  out 
an  old  theory.  He  records  in  his  early  diary  how 
he  said  to  a  friend,  depressed  by  painful  reflections, 
"  Drill  your  thoughts — shut  out  the  gloomy,  and  call  in 
the  bright.  There  is  more  wisdom  in  '  shutting  one's 
eyes,'  than  your  copy-book  philosophers  will  allow." 
He  acted  upon  the  principle,  and  got  an  extraordinary 
amount  of  gaiety  from  playing  at  being  gay. 

The  Conquest  of  England  still  went  on.  In  January 
1883,  he  decided  to  make  a  change,  in  spite  of  the 
cost  of  cancelling  4000  copies  of  matter  already 
printed  by  the  Macmillans.  One  morning  in  January, 
he  had  a  sudden  momentary  access  of  strength.  His 
eagerness  to  advance  was  impeded  by  the  inevitable 
slowness  of  Mrs.  Green's  left-hand  penmanship.  He 
got  a  table  placed  across  his  sofa,  and  was  able  to 
write  several  sheets  of  the  first  chapter.  That  was 
his  last  piece  of  work.  "  Now  I  am  weary,"  he 
said,  "and  can  work  no  more."  Enough  of  the 
book  had  been  written  to  enable  Mrs.  Green  to  put 
together  the  fragments,  and  bring  it  out  a  few  months 
later. 

A  few  friends  came  to  see  him, — his  brother,  Mr. 
Bryce,  Mr.  Brooke  Lambert,  and  Mr.  Humphry  Ward. 

2  D 


402  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

On  the  news  of  a  serious  change  (February  ist),  the 
Macmillans  at  once  left  London,  and  came  to  Mentone 
and  stayed  till  the  end.  His  doctor  said  that  he  had 
never  seen  a  case  in  which  the  mind  was  so  clear  and 
active,  and  the  will  so  resolute  under  such  weakness. 
He  showed  marvellous  determination  in  refusing  almost 
all  drink  for  forty-eight  hours,  because  it  was  supposed 
to  be  injurious.  A  month  or  two  before  he  had  told 
Mrs.  Green  that  he  should  make  no  more  inquiries 
about  his  condition,  but  trusted  her  to  speak  to  him 
when  it  should  be  necessary.  On  February  25,  she 
had  to  announce  to  him  that  rallying  was  impossible. 
Only  his  courage  had  enabled  him  to  live  so  long. 
"  It  was  good  of  you  to  tell  me,"  he  replied  ;  and  after 
thinking,  he  added  ;  "  I  have  something  to  say  in  my 
book  still  which  I  know  is  worth  saying.  I  feel  I 
could  do  good  work.  I  will  make  a  fight  for  it.  I 
will  do  what  I  can,  and  I  must  have  sleeping  draughts 
for  a  week.  After  that  it  will  not  matter  if  they  lose 
their  effect."  Then  he  asked  her  to  go  on  reading  the 
Life  of  Lord  Lawrence  to  him. 

On  March  3  he  took  leave  of  his  friends,  and 
afterwards  saw  no  one  except  his  wife.  He  died 
March  7,  1883. 

Sir  Lauder  Brunton  said  that  his  force  of  will,  and 
enthusiasm  for  his  work  had  kept  him  alive  for  two 
years  longer  than  any  doctor  would  have  thought 
possible.  He  told  his  wife  that  what  had  kept  him 
alive  was  his  dread  of  separation  from  her.  Many 
years  before  he  had  said,  "  I  know  what  men  will  say 
of  me  ;  they  will  say,  '  he  died  learning.' '  Mr. 
Humphry  Ward  adds  that  they  will  also  say,  "he 
died  loving." 


iv  LAST  YEARS  403 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
January  7,  1875. 

[Refers  to  Mr.  T.  L.  Kington  Oliphant's  Sources  of 
Standard  English,  1873.  Mr .  A.  J.  Ellis  (1814-1890) 
published  some  papers  upon  early  English  pro- 
nunciation in  the  early  English  Text  Society  and  the 
Chaucer  Society.  Freeman's  Comparative  Politics 
appeared  in  1873.] 

Thanks,  dear  Freeman,  for  the  proof,  though  it  is 
too  late  for  the  present  edition.  I  keep  your  sugges- 
tions that  come  behind  time  in  the  vain  hope  of  some 
day  correcting  and  enlarging  the  book.  I  can't  quite 
go  with  all  your  suggestions  about  style,  but  they  are 
always  useful  in  recalling  me  to  greater  precision  and 
clearness.  Where  we  part  most  is  in  the  question  of 
"  personifying,"  which  makes  a  great  figure  in  this 
proof.  No  doubt  such  expressions  as  "  the  terror  of 
the  Irish  massacre  hung  round  its  leaders  "  belong  to 
poetry  rather  than  to  prose,  but  if  used  in  moderation 
the  greater  English  prose-writers  have  always  vindicated 
their  right  to  employ  them.  It  is  quite  possible,  and  I 
think  true,  that  I  don't  use  it  in  moderation,  and 
so  even  if  we  differ  your  criticism  is  useful.  By 
"Presbyterian  Churchmen"  I  meant  just  what  I  said 
—the  men  of  a  church  which  was  then  by  law  Pres- 
byterian. Gauden  was  a  Presbyterian  and  conformed 
in  1660,  having  immense  trouble  by-the-bye  to  wring 
his  bishopric  out  of  Clarendon.  He  seems  to  have 
done  it  by  threatening  to  claim  the  Eikon  as  his  own. 

I  too  have  been  reading  and  like  Oliphant's  book, 
but  I  wish  he  didn't  overdo  his  case.  In  the  three 
pieces  of  English  he  takes  as  typical,  the  last  is  a  mere 
caricature.  He  does  not  do  justice  too  to  the  value 
of  Latin  or  other  foreign  words  as  alternative  words, 
as  in  the  old  instance  of  "  acknowledge  and  con- 
fess"  ;  I  don't  know  whether  you  will  care  for  this, 


4o4  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

as  Bryce  tells  me  you  say,  "we  mustn't  mind  re- 
peating the  same  word,"  but  I  own  my  ear  won't 
stand  repetition.  Then  too  in  his  very  interesting 
account  of  the  way  in  which  the  Friars  brought  in  their 
outlandish  terms,  he  doesn't  tell  how  many  of  these 
actually  supplemented  living  English  words,  and  how 
many  were  simply  introduced  as  names  for  ideas  which 
had  had  no  English  names  before.  In  the  latter  case 
one  would  like,  too,  to  know  whether  the  words  could 
have  been  supplied  by  English,  whether  it  retained  its 
old  combinative  power,  or  whether  "  In-wit,"  and  the 
like  were  mere  Wardour  Street  archasologisms.  His 
praise  of  Morris's  poetry  as  a  specimen  of  good 
English  is  fair  enough,  but  then  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  Morris  dealt  wholly  with  outer  scenes 
or  definite  actions  which  are  easily  expressed  in  common 
English  words.  It  is  when  one  comes  to  the  finer  and 
more  abstract  side  of  things  that  the  pinch  conies. 
But  I  own  the  real  reason  why  I  stand  a  little  on  my 
guard  as  to  the  "  English  "  restoration  which  is  going 
on  is  that  I  am  afraid  we  may  lose  through  it  certain 
elements  of  beauty  in  style  which  the  mixed  texture  of 
our  present  speech  gives  us.  In  Shakespeare's  famous 
burst  about  "  mercy "  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice  line 
follows  line  in  the  simplest  English,  but  when  he 
wishes  to  heighten  his  tone  at  the  close  it  is  interesting 
to  see  how  we  get  lines  full  of  Latinisms : — 

The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strain'd, 

It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 

Upon  the  place  beneath  :  it  is  twice  blessed  ; 

It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes  : 

'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest  :  it  becomes 

The  throned  monarch  better  than  his  crown  ; 

His  sceptre  shows  the  force  of  temporal  power, 

The  attribute  to  awe  and  majesty, 

Wherein  doth  sit  the  dread  and  fear  of  kings ; 

But  mercy  is  above  this  sceptred  sway  ; 

It  is  enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  kings ; 

It  is  an  attribute  to  God  himself; 

And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  God's 

When  mercy  seasons  justice. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  405 

I  only  quote  this  because  it  so  exactly  expresses,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  the  musical  value  of  Latinisms  in  English 
style,  their  value  as  alternatives,  and  their  curious  faculty 
(perhaps  from  their  mere  length)  of  heightening  the 
tone  and  giving  majesty  to  a  sentence.  What  Old 
English  seems  to  me  to  lack  is  the  Greek  power  of  con- 
structing a  "  long  resounding  line,"  and  I  believe  that 
the  musical  instinct  of  people's  ears,  craving  for  greater 
dignity  of  structure  and  expression,  has  had  much  to 
do  with  the  introduction  of  Latinisms. 

Moreover  Oliphant  is  wrong,  it  seems,  in  following 
Latham  as  to  Rutland  and  Huntingdon  being  the  places 
where  spoken  English  is  closest  to  book  English.  I  am 
glad  of  this,  for  I  could  not  make  it  square  with  what 
one  knows  of  one's  Anglian  folk-divisions.  Ellis  has 
got  a  book  on  the  Dialects  ready,  and  they  fall  quite 
sweetly  into  the  great  historic  divisions,  e.g.  the 
Mercian  =  S.  Lancashire,  Cheshire,  Staffordshire,  and 
Derby  ;  the  N.  Anglian  =  W.  and  S. W.  of  Yorkshire  ; 
Middle  Anglian  =  Leicester,  Lincoln,  Notts,  Warwick, 
N.  Northampton,  and  N.  Beds  ;  E.  Anglian  =  Norfolk, 
Suffolk,  N.  Essex,  Cambridge,  Hunts.  This  is  a  real  ser- 
vice done  by  philology  to  history,  because  though  one 
knew  where  the  North  Angles  must  be  yet  nobody  has 
ever  said  from  Basda  down  where  they  actually  were,  and 
much  as  I  loved  my  Middle-Angles  I  should  have  been 
shy  of  fixing  their  boundaries.  Well  it  seems  that  it  is 
in  the  Southern  or  Central  part — Hertford,  S.  Beds, 
Bucks,  Middlesex,  N.  Surrey,  S.  Essex,  and  the  adjoin- 
ing parts  of  Kent — that  spoken  English  and  Book 
English  be  most  at  one — especially  in  Hertfordshire. 

After  all  it  is  simply  there,  what  has  taken  place 
everywhere,  that  the  tongue  of  the  capital  becomes  the 
book  tongue. 

I  like  Comparative  Politics — barring  the  extreme 
diffuseness  and  bother  of  its  first  sixty  pages  ;  but  why 
do  you  say  folk  "  gird  "  at  it  ?  I  thought  the  P.  M.  G. 
very  clever  and  to  a  great  degree  sensible — didn't  you  ? 

I  have  gone  no  whither,  but  stopped  in  this  London 


406  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

fog-land.  But  England  in  winter  is  a  cussed  country, 
and  I  can't  quite  keep  aloof  from  colds.  Nevertheless, 
I  am  not  in  any  very  bad  way.  Good-bye. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

Do  you  mark  that  Shakespeare  was  a  Middle-English- 
man ? l 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
January  8,  1875. 

Why  do  you  make  me  hate  art,  dear  "  sad  old 
woman  "  (which  ain't  proper,  I  know,  but  it's  your  own 
words,  it  is  !)  by  making  Lippo  my  rival  and  pitting 
the  National  Gallery  against  "  No.  4  "  ?  Fresh  water 
indeed,  when  I  am  inhaling  London  fog  with  a  con- 
stancy which  only  lives  in  realms  above  where  to  be 
wroth  with  those  we  love — not  that  that  has  anything 
to  do  with  my  being  here,  but  one's  mind  floats  vaguely 
on  the  confines  of  old  age,  and  definiteness  glimmers 
far  back  in  the  distance  among  "  the  proofs  which  were 
printed  when  I  "  (not  you,  Olga)  "  was  a  guileless  child." 
Louise  is  coming  for  tea,  muffins,  and  Old  Lang  Syne. 
Will  you  not  come  at  any  rate  for  the  Tea  and  muffins  ? 
I  am  always  in  at  four  ;  but  a  card  would  fix  me  at 
home  any  when,  and  I  want  a  talk,  for  things  which 
I  care  a  good  deal  about  are  going  to  the  bad  just 
now  in  an  awful  fashion,  not  to  mention  that  I  am 
sinking  back  under  a  dispensation  of  Clark  and  Nitric 
Acid. 

Thanks  about  the  Zeller.  I  will  write  to  the 
reviewer. 

Some  day,  dear  Olga,  you  must  take  me  to  your 
poor  children  in  Ormond  Street.  I  live  among  books 
and  friends  and  am  growing  hard  and  selfish.  And 

1  The  following  passage  in  another  letter  refers  to  another  of  Freeman's  crot- 
chets :  "  I  am  always  luckless  enough  to  be  out  when  Dawkins  calls  in  town. 
By-the-bye,  I  find  this  phrase  '  in  town '  used  as  I  use  it  here  (to  your  horror)  in 
the  Long  Parliament  time  by  very  distinguished  patriots." 


iv  LAST  YEARS  407 

yet,  do  you  know,  I  who  have  seen  so  much  terrible 
suffering  in  my  time  shrink  from  seeing  a  child  suffer. 
But  you  shall  take  me  there. 

Good-bye,  dear  friend.  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
January  1 8,  1875. 

[Green  says  (Short  History >,  end  of  chap,  ii.)  that 
John's  failure  to  relieve  Chateau  Gaillard  forced  him 
into  the  policy  which  led  to  the  Great  Charter.  The 
ruin  at  Chateau  Gaillard  "  represents  the  ruin  of  a 
system  as  well  as  of  a  camp.  From  its  dark  donjon 
we  see  not  merely  the  pleasant  vale  of  Seine,  but  the 
sedgy  flats  of  our  own  Runnymede."] 

I  have  just  seen  your  review  of  me  in  the  Pall  Ma//, 
dear  Freeman,  and  I  mustn't  delay  a  moment  in  thank- 
ing you  for  it.  I  have  never  seen  a  really  grander  in- 
stance of  a  resolve  to  look  at  a  book  from  the  author's 
and  not  the  reviewer's  point  of  view,  or  a  finer  apprecia- 
tion of  modes  of  treatment  which  may  happen  to  differ 
from  one's  own.  You  are  in  fact  the  first  who  has 
really  pointed  out  what  I  wanted  to  do,  and  how  far  I 
have  succeeded  in  doing  it. 

On  the  whole,  I  go  with  your  criticism.  As  to  the 
sight  of  Runnymede  from  Chateau  Gaillard,  indeed  I 
can  only  say  I  did  see  it,  and  if  you  didn't  it  was  be- 
cause you  went  fast  to  sleep  in  that  pleasant  sunshine 
while  I  sate  beside  you  "  mooning  "  about  the  Angevins. 
I  mean  this,  that  as  I  "  mooned  "  at  Chateau  Gaillard  I 
saw  for  the  first  time  (so  far  as  /  was  concerned)  what 
seemed  to  me  the  true  bearing  of  the  Angevin  reigns  on 
the  fortunes  of  England  and  the  birth  of  the  Charter. 
It  wasn't  a  metaphor  to  me  then  and  it  isn't  now  ;  and 
why  on  earth  did  you  go  to  sleep  when  you  might  have 
had  such  a  sight  ?  And  so  perhaps  I  should  defend 
the  phrase  "  the  New  Monarchy,"  though  as  Gairdner 


4o8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

has  written  objecting  to  it  yet  more  strongly  than  you 
do  I  had  better  reconsider  its  propriety. 

But  what  you  say  about  the  allusive  style,  the  inver- 
sion of  events,  and  the  crowd  of  small  blunders  is  quite 
true.  I  have  learned  many  things  in  my  day  and  some 
time  I  suppose  I  shall  learn  to  revise  my  proofs.  A 
good  many  of  the  smaller  matters  1  can  put  right  in 
the  revision  I  am  making  of  the  book  now,  but  I  can 
only  deal  with  the  stereotype  plates  to  a  certain  extent, 
and  so  greater  matters  must  remain  for  the  big  edition 
for  which  Mac  is  pressing.  When  I  have  got  things 
right,  or  righter,  in  that,  he  will  perhaps  have  sold 
enough  of  Little  Book  to  let  me  cancel  as  I  want  to  do 
a  vast  deal  that  lies  between  Alfred's  day  and  Mary's 
day.  That  is  the  weakest  part  of  the  book. 

As  to  the  general  feeling  of  all  the  reviewers  that  I 
haven't  carried  out  my  plan  after  1660,  it  would  have 
been  better  had  I  frankly  owned  in  the  Preface  how 
this  came  about.  The  truth  was  that  when  I  reached 
1660  I  had  to  face  the  fact  that  the  book  must  have  an 
end,  and  that  I  must  end  it  in  about  800  pp.  Some- 
thing had  to  be  thrown  overboard,  and  I  deliberately 
chose  "  Literature,"  not  because  Dry  den  or  Pope  or 
Addison  or  Wordsworth  were  strange  to  me,  for  I  knew 
them  better  than  the  earlier  men,  and  have  much  that  I 
want  to  say  about  them,  but  because  it  seemed  to  me 
that  after  1660  literature  ceased  to  stand  in  the  fore- 
front of  national  characteristics,  and  that  Science,  In- 
dustry, etc.,  played  a  much  greater  part.  Now  Science 
I  like,  but  "  Industry  "  is  dust  and  ashes  to  me  ;  never- 
theless for  truth's  sake  I  did  violence  to  the  natural 
man  and  turned  away  from  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and 
the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock  "  to  cotton-spinning  and  Pitt's 
finance.  It  cost  me  a  lot  of  trouble,  and  I  knew  the 
book  wouldn't  be  as  bright  and  pretty,  but  still  I 
think  I  did  rightly.  However,  Belinda  and  Sir  Roger 
will  brighten  the  pages  of  the  bigger  book,  and  in- 
deed my  fingers  itch  to  be  at  them. 

But  just  now  I  am  fit  for  very  little.     I  caught  cold 


iv  LAST  YEARS  409 

a  fortnight  ago  and  have  been  a  prisoner  ever  since  with 
a  cough  that  robbed  me  of  sleep  and  wore  away  my 
strength  to  nothing.  I  am  going  to  pick  up  again,  it 
seems,  but  as  yet  I  am  so  terribly  weak  that  the  mere 
writing  of  this  letter  has  utterly  tired  me.  That  dear 
boy,  the  Holy  Roman,  has  looked  me  up  twice  and 
cheered  me  with  his  pleasant  talk.  Last  night  he  came 
in  at  ten  after  walking  twenty  miles  "  in  the  rain  "  with 
Leslie  Stephen  !  If  I  had  the  H.  R.'s  health  and  vigour, 
what  wouldn't  I  do  ? 

I  am  very  wretched,  really  wretched,  about  Glad- 
stone's retirement.  I  can't  follow  him  everywhither, 
but  he  is  my  leader,  and  I  don't  see  any  other  to  lead 
me  on  the  Liberal  benches.  And  I  am  cast  down  by 
the  general  ingratitude.  Everybody  I  meet  (save  the 
Holy  Roman)  seems  glad  he  is  gone.  It  makes  me 
want  to  carry  out  my  notion  of  writing  a  history  from 
1815  to  now,  if  only  to  say  that  I  for  one  love  and 
honour  Gladstone  as  I  love  and  honour  no  other  living 
statesman. 

Good-bye,  dear  Chief.  As  soon  as  I  can  patch  up 
so  as  to  fly  safely  I  must  run  out  of  this.  I  can  do  two 
or  three  little  things  abroad. — Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

In  answer  to  a  fresh  remonstrance  from  Freeman  on 
the  view  from  Chateau  Gaillard  Green  writes  again  : 
"  I  am  afraid  that,  telescope  or  no,  I  did  see  Runny- 
mede  from  Chateau  Gaillard,  so  I  can't  help  sticking 
to  it.  Do  you  remember  our  day  there  ? — it  was  just 
one  of  the  great  impressions  of  my  life." 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
February  13,  1875. 

Big  Book  is  begun  (which  is  "  half-done "  always 
with  me),  and  I  see  I  can  make  a  good  book  of  it. 
But  as  I  foretold  it  is  taking  its  own  shape  in  spite  of 


4io  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

my  wishes  to  keep  it  down  to  four  vols.,  and  is  pretty 
certain  to  run  to  six  of  some  500  pp.  I  am  musing 
much  on  "references."  "Notes"  I  won't  have,  and 
references  on  a  thoroughly  full  scale  (like  Norm. 
Conq.}  seem  to  me  the  right  thing  when  one  is  ex- 
amining a  special  period  minutely,  but  not  in  such  a 
case  as  mine,  where  after  all  the  narrative  must  keep 
pretty  well  to  the  known  and  obvious  lines.  My 
present  notion  is  to  state  (as  in  Little  Book,  but  more 
minutely  and  critically)  the  general  authorities  for  each 
period  at  the  beginning  of  it,  and  to  use  special  re- 
ferences only  in  cases  where  they  radically  differ  and  I 
have  to  choose,  or  where  I  am  off  the  general  track 
(in  Saints'  lives,  etc.),  or  quoting  documents  like 
Charters,  or  in  like  special  cases.  This  is  pretty  much 
Ranke's  way,  I  see,  in  his  "  English  History  "  of  the  Stuart 
time  which  I  am  grinding  at  now.  Its  chief  value 
seems  to  me  to  be  for  "  foreign  relations,"  which  are 
wonderfully  well  done  ;  its  weakest  point  the  constitu- 
yf  tional  side.  He  can't  understand,  I  suppose  no 
foreigner  can,  an  adherence  to  forms  and  precedents 
even  in  the  face  of  "  state  necessities,"  and  so  he  only 
half  sees  the  meaning  of  the  Parliamentary  Contention 
from  1620  to  1640.  Still  the  book  is  a  very  notable 
book,  and  well  worth  reading.  I  suppose  you  have 
got  Gardiner's  new  vols.  anent  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham. They  are  a  little  dull,  I  fear,  but  they  clear  up 
a  great  lot,  especially  that  great  mystery  of  the  war 
with  France  in  1627.  But  I  can't  on  Gardiner's  own 
facts  take  his  estimate  of  Buckingham.  No  doubt  he 
was  far  from  being  the  mere  giddy  fool  Clarendon 
paints  him  ;  he  was  clever  and  active  enough,  but  it  is 
the  cleverness  and  activity  of  a  clever  restless  boy, 
not  of  a  man,  much  less  of  a  statesman.  What  he 
wanted  was  to  make  a  noise  somehow,  and  it  didn't 
much  matter  how.  I  see  he  is  going  to  make  Charles 
and  Laud  the  champions  of  "  free  inquiry  "  against  the 
Puritan  House  of  Commons.  No  doubt  Laud's  friend- 
ship with  Chillingworth,  etc.,  shows  the  Latitudinarians 


iv  LAST  YEARS  41 1 

felt  that  to  a  certain  extent  he  was  sailing  in  their 
boat,  but  only  I  think  as  the  "  party  down "  always 
travels  in  that  boat,  or  as  Liddon  and  his  gang  prattle 
Liberal  commonplaces  now.  Beyond  this  the  view 
seems  to  me  a  mere  paradox. 

I  have  settled  to  go  southwards  at  the  opening  of 
March  with  the  Macmillans — rather  reluctantly  for  I 
am  bitten  with  my  Big  Book  and  want  to  go  on 
with  it.  But  I  am  better  out  of  England  for  March, 
no  doubt ;  it  is  a  long  while  since  I  had  a  holiday,  and 
the  run  to  the  dear  Italy  will  quicken  me,  as  it  always 
does,  and  send  me  back  fresh  to  do  better  and  larger- 
tempered  work.  I  shall  hurry  them  to  Naples  at  once, 
and  work  back  slowly  northwards  as  the  sun  gets 
stronger. 

•  ••••• 

By -the -bye,  thank  Florence  for  the  "Spring 
garland  "  that  reached  me  a  while  ago.  I  should  like 
to  die  hearing  music  and  seeing  flowers. 

Good-bye.  I  am  fairly  well  but  a  little  tired  with 
working  and  thinking  just  now.  Little  Book  had  sold 
two  days  ago  5500  copies,  and  is  going  off  100  a  day, 
but  that  won't  last.  Was  I  cross  and  pettish  a  while 
ago  ?  Macmillan  says  you  say  so.  If  I  was,  I  am 
sorry,  for  I  owe  you  much,  and  am  still  as  ever, 
affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
March  21,  1875. 

I  still  trust  you  may  be  able  to  meet  us  before  we 
go  over  Channel,  dear  Freeman.  Mrs.  Macmillan  is 
naturally  anxious  to  be  off  as  early  as  possible,  fearing 
fevers  and  what  not  in  May,  and  insists  on  our  starting 
on  the  2yth. 

H.  has  bought  a  Muratori,  happy  man,  and  seems 
thoroughly  Italy -bitten.  I  pressed  him  to  take  up 


4i2  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

and  do  the  History  of  Florence,  the  finest  and  most 
beautiful  historic  subject  in  the  world,  finer  I  think 
(take  it  all  round)  than  Athens  itself.  But  it  could 
only  be  really  written  by  a  man  Florentine  in  feeling — 
with  equal  sympathies,  that  is,  for  politics,  commerce, 
art,  letters,  religion,  such  as  those  old  Alighieri  and 
Cavalcanti  had.  And  then  too  he  must  write,  and 
not  do  mere  clerk's  prose. 

When  I  come  back  I  shall  set  about  the  Library 
edition  of  Little  Book,  rewriting  much  (e.g.  from 
Alfred  to  John,  and  Edw.  III.),  revising  more,  and 
adding  after  1660  literature  and  art,  etc.,  and  con- 
tinuing in  a  sort  to  present  day.  I  think  it  is  righter 
to  do  this  first,  though  my  soul  is  a-thirst  for  the 
bigger  book  I  mean  in  years  to  come  to  supersede  it 
by.  I  have  already  done  three  chapters  (or  150  pp. 
print)  of  the  first  volume  ("  The  Old  English  King- 
dom"), i.e.  a  chapter  on  "  The  English  in  Old  England," 
then  "The  English  Conquest,"  then  "The  North- 
umbrian Overlordship."  I  think  you  will  like  the 
two  first,  especially  the  Old  England  one,  in  which  I 
have  used  up  Beowulf,  Maine,  and  Tylor  in  the 
oddest  way.  How  folk  can  have  neglected  Beowulf  as 
they  have  done  I  can't  conceive.  Grant  the  difficulty 
about  the  date  of  the  present  song,  one  only  needs 
read  it  to  see  that  the  whole  air  of  the  song  is  of  the 
very  earliest,  that  the  picture  of  manners  and  feelings 
it  presents  is  one  of  an  age  pre-Christian,  etc.,  and 
that  it  really  carries  us  back  to  a  Jutland  and  England 
which  our  fathers  dwelled  in.  One  gets  out  of  it  a 
world  of  knowledge  about  them,  not  only  about  their 
life  and  warfare,  but  their  art,  their  civilization,  above 
^all  their  moral  feelings.  For  instance  the  love  of  the 
sea  is  the  great  ever-recurring  theme  ;  the  land  is  as 
yet  unloved,  the  in-land  feared.  Now  this  is  just  a 
trait  which  could  only  come  in  very  early  days,  and 
yet  nobody  seems  to  have  noted  it  one  bit.  I  have 
indulged  myself — in  the  pride  of  Little  Book — in 
purchasing  Kemble's  Beowulf,  two  wee  vols.  for  two 


iv  LAST  YEARS  413 

guineas  :    but  it  is  well  worth   the   money.     Do   you 
know  Beowulf? 

Good-bye.  Peace  be  upon  your  Hacons  and 
Foochows.  I  curse  the  day  when  I  consented  to 
examine  for  the  Civil  Service  and  spend  this  never-to- 
be-sufficiently  detested  March  in  England.  Neverthe- 
less I  am  not  much  the  worse.  Whisper  "  Flowers " 
in  some  kind  Somerleazian  ear  for  me !  Good-bye, 
but  do  come. — Affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

I  go  and  see  Motley  to-morrow  ;  he  sent  a  pretty 
message. 

To  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 

(i8750 

[Fragments.] 

Siena  carried  me  right  away  ;  it  ranks  with  Verona 
as  the  two  Italian  towns  I  love  most  henceforth.  But 
I  am  too  tired  to  do  Murray,  so  I  wait  till  we  can 
look  over  my  photographs  together  when  I  come  down 
to  Oxford.  As  yet  the  "great"  things  in  my  run 
have  been  the  great  circle  of  snow-mountains  which 
swept  round  us  at  Siena  and  Milan,  the  fresh  beauty 
of  Verona  with  the  snow  covering  the  hills  round  it, 
the  Emperor-reception  at  Venice,  a  crowd  of  golden 
gondolas  with  mediaeval  gondoliers  suddenly  flooding 
the  waters  of  the  Grand  Canal  like  a  picture  of  John 
Bellini  or  Carpaccio  escaped  from  its  frame  and  gone  a 
little  mad  ;  my  quiet  two  hours  in  the  Arena  Chapel  at 
Padua,  and  my  quiet  hour  in  the  Fra  Angelico  chapel 
at  the  Vatican  (after  which  Raffaelle  sinks  to  the  vulgar 
and  (illegible}  level)  ;  a  great  blood-red  sunset  in  the 
Val  d' Arno,  a  great  gold  sunset  in  the  Maremma  (with 
a  silver  lake  of  olives  in  the  foreground),  and  a  great 
violet  and  purple  and  gold  sunset  all  over  the  Cam- 
pagna  as  we  entered  Rome ;  Siena  itself,  the  great 
temples  at  Paestum  after  which  Pericles  sinks  into  a 
Greek  of  the  Decadence  ;  and  Garibaldi. 


4H  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

It  is  ever  hideous  to  see  him  with  a  group  of 
fawning  fools  about  him,  but  all  the  horrors  of  the 
group  about  him  are  fading  out  of  my  memory,  and 
leaving  nothing  but  the  bare,  brick-floored  room,  the 
camp  bed,  the  worn  homely  face,  so  grand  in  its  utter 
simplicity,  the  simple  chatty  address,  all  softened  with 
the  weariness  of  pain,  the  quiet  kindly  look  of  the 
small  bright  eyes,  into  which  a  light — such  a  light- 
stole  once  as  he  recalled  a  kind  act  of  "  you  English, 
who  have  always  been  so  good  to  me."  I  came  away 
so  hushed  and  stilled  (the  rest  were  infinitely  amused  !) 
from  the  presence  of  that  greatness,  that  goodness ! 
Heroem  vidi. 

Good-bye,  dear  M.  I  am  very  happy  here.  The 
A.  Courts,  Halcombe,  and  other  folk  are  here,  so  is 
Mahaffy,  full  of  Greek  things  and  refusing  to  look  at 
Roman  things,  to  refuse  which  in  Rome  argues  a  divine 
Hellenism.  Very  happy',  but  very  tired  and  longing 
for  home  and  the  sight  and  sound  of  you  all.  Knock- 
ing about  never  does  me  good,  but  a  few  weeks'  rest 
will  put  all  straight.  Little  Book  still  sells  50  a  day, 
and  is  in  its  fourteenth  thousand,  whereof  let  us  re- 
joice. Good-bye.  Kiss  Dolly  and  give  my  love  to 
Humphry.  In  spite  of  all  my  misdeeds  you  must 
never  doubt  of  my  love  for  you. — Ever  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

ROME,  May  4,  1875. 

I  have  managed  to  jog  on  for  a  month  from  Turin 
to  Paestum  with  only  a  couple  of  letters  home,  dear 
Freeman,  but  I  mustn't  quit  Rome  again  without  a 
word  to  you.  Our  journey  has  been  a  delightful  one  ; 
the  weather  all  through  April  was  perfect,  bright  sun- 
shine tempered  by  cool  winds  from  the  Apennines  and 
the  Alps,  where  the  snow  still  lay  white  and  deep. 
Now  summer  has  at  last  broken,  and  the  heat  is  driving 
us  all  beaten  northward.  I  won't  bother  you  with  all 


iv  LAST  YEARS  415 

our  doings  on  the  regular  track  ;  my  aim  was  in  part  to 
pick  up  some  places  which  I  had  been  forced  to  let  go 
by  in  former  years,  such  as  Pavia,  where  three  Eton 
masters  pronounced  themselves  "bored  beyond  measure," 
but  which  failed  to  bore  me,  oddly  enough !     I  came 
away  with  a  great  Lombard  fit  on  and  a  great  wonder 
why  somebody  hasn't  writ  a  good  story  of  the  Lombard 
Conquest  and  Rule.     It  isn't  near  so  fine  a  subject  as 
one  which  tempted  me  in  old  days  before  I  came  down 
to  humbler  ways  and  "  Short  Histories,"  the  story  of 
the  Goths,  but  it  is  easier  to  manage  and  full  of  delight- 
ful outlooks.     Hen  and  chicken   I   mean  to  pick  up 
going  home  if  I  can,  as  we  missed  Monza.     My  great 
new  find  has  been  Siena,  which  henceforth  ranks  with 
Verona  in  my  fond  affection,  though  Verona  looked 
wondrous  fair  this  time  with  the  Alps  all  a-snow  about 
her.     Siena  has  no  S.  Zeno,  but  her  Duomo  is  a  grand 
thing,  a  really  fine  Romanesque  nave  widening  out  into 
a  low  broad  dome  of  the  same  date,  with  broad  tran- 
septs and  choirs  grouped  round  it.      I  never  saw  an 
interior  more  effective,  more  full  of  "  points  of  view."     In 
picturesqueness  of  street  architecture  Siena  beats  Verona 
all  to  fits  ;  the  streets  are  hill  lanes,  curving  and  mounting 
and  falling  in  the  queerest  and  most  delightful  way,  and 
tumbling  one  out  in  a  stage-surprise  fashion  down  break- 
neck stairs  into  the  grandest  Town  Square  in  all  Italy, 
with  none  but  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  century  things 
about  it  and  a  great  tall  Town-Tower  springing   up 
into  the  blue.     I  say  Square,  but  it  isn't  a  square  at  all, 
but  an  oval  dipping  in  the  middle,  an  old  amphitheatre 
the  guide-books  say.     As  for  sculptures  and  pictures  I 
say  nought,  throwing  no  pearls  before  the — well,  the 
black  swans  of  Somerleaze.     Likewise  more  southernly 
I   picked  up  Paestum,   and    poured   out   a  libation  to 
Poseidon   that   I   might  be   suffered   to  return  in   the 
Bessemer.     But  the  wine  was  very  bad,  and  I  doubt 
Poseidon,  poor  old  thing,  is  grown  deaf  with  hearing 
nothing  so  long.     Oh,  how  jolly  it  was  to  feel  in  Hellas 
at    last — never    mind    which    Hellas — in    real    Hellas, 


4i 6  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

though  t'other  side  of  the  Hadrian  Sea  !  I  felt  a  bit  of 
a  glow  before  even  at  Pompeii,  when  I  got  out  of  the 
Brighton-and-Burlington- Arcade  streets  and  lighted  on 
that  grand  bit  of  a  Doric  Temple,  the  only  relics  of  the 
old  Greek  town  before  the  Roman -Philisters  turned 
it  into  a  fashionable  watering-place.  My  Hellenism, 
however,  pales  before  that  of  MahafFy  whom  we  found 
here,  here  in  Rome,  refusing  with  scorn  to  look  at  any 
"  Roman  thing."  He  was  on  his  way  to  Athens,  and 
simply  picking  up  stray  bits  of  Hellenism,  sculptures 
and  what  not  by  the  road.  One  of  his  aims  is  to  verify 
Greek  busts  ;  he  doubts  "  Pericles,"  and  a  little  doubts 
Alexander — whereat  I  wept  and  fled.  Likewise  he  is 
seeking  to  know  how  Hellenic  young  women  kept  their 
clothes  on,  a  question  wrapt  in  the  deepest  mystery,  and 
insoluble  by  the  Highest  Germany.  Perhaps  it  was  too 
insoluble  for  the  Hellenic  young  women  themselves,  as 
to  judge  from  the  later  sculptures  they  seem  soon  to 
have  dropt  the  effort  to  keep  their  clothes  on.  Perhaps 
that  is  why  MahafFy  calls  the  Periclean  time  the  age  of 
Decadence. 

Let  us  chat  about  Rome.  Old  Parker  is  here  and 
wondrous  civil.  I  met  him  on  Palatine  Sunday  sunset, 
and  though  I  was  near  dropping  with  fatigue,  he  trotted 
me  over  his  walls  and  wolf-caves  till  nature  could  stand 
no  more.  But  really  he  is  a  good  old  soul  and  tells 
one  such  a  lot  that  one  throws  him  in  his  Romulus  and 
Remus  willingly.  The  newest  thing  on  Palatine  are 
diggings  by  the  side  of  the  "  Steps  of  Cacus  "  (Sermone 
Parkerico),  where  a  set  of  Augustan  baths  are  turning 
up  +  a  very  early  building  which  P.  calls  "Temple  of 
Jupiter  Feretrius,"  coolly  bringing  said  Jupiter  over  from 
the  Capitol  for  the  purpose.  In  Forum  they  are  creep- 
ing nearer  to  the  temple  of  Antoninus  and  Faustina, 
but  lighting  on  none  save  mediaeval  remains  as  yet. 
They  are  soon  going  to  dig  about  the  Church  of  Cosmas 
and  Damian,  where  Parker  puts  Hadrian's  Temple  of 
Venus  and  Rome  plus  two  other  temples,  though 
(granted  the  wonderful  squashability  of  Roman  buildings, 


iv  LAST  YEARS  417 

which  all  seem  singing  "  We  met,  'twas  in  a  crowd  !  ") 
I  don't  see  where  he  is  to  find  room  for  them.  Till  he 
does  find  room  I  shall  still  believe  in  the  old  site  on  the 
top  of  the  Via  Sacra.  The  diggings  in  Colisasum  ruin 
the  look  of  the  building  within,  but  are  interesting  in 
themselves.  At  the  bottom  of  one  of  the  corridors 
lies  a  huge  "  ship's  stocks  "  all  perfect  though  decayed, 
the  stocks  from  which  the  galleys  were  hoisted  up  into 
the  canals  above.  I  was  puzzled  about  these  naumachias, 
but  Parker  speaketh  thus,  that  two  or  three  great  galley 
canals,  some  ten  feet  deep,  ran  the  whole  length  of  the 
building,  that  the  floor  between  these  was  thinly  flooded 
with  water  so  as  to  look  like  a  great  lake,  that  the 
naumachiae  consisted  not  in  the  galleys  poking  one 
another,  which  in  parallel  canals  would  be  impossible, 
but  in  the  crew  of  one  striving  to  board  the  other,  that 
when  the  fight  was  over  the  surface  water  was  drawn  ofF 
by  a  great  sluice  (the  water  in  the  canals  remaining)  and 
the  canals  boarded  over  so  as  to  present  a  great  open 
arena.  I  think  this  was  fairly  borne  out  by  the  brick- 
work he  showed.  As  for  "  dens  for  eighty  elephants  " 
I  pass  them  by,  the  sagacity  of  that  wonderful  beast 
being  perhaps  equal  to  stowing  its  form  into  the  dens 
archaeologists  provide  for  it  by  a  series  of  ingenious 
contrivances  which  my  unelephantine  mind  cannot 
imagine.  Likewise  I  leave  the  "  lifts,"  unable  as  I  am 
to  conceive  eighty  elephants  hoisted,  each  in  his  separate 
bandage,  up  to  the  light,  as  a  ridiculus  mus. 

This  morn  at  seven  stood  by  my  bed  the  great 
Parker  and  said,  "  Let  us  see  the  second  wall  of  Rome." 
I  went  and  saw.  That  is  to  say  I  saw  somewhat  and  I 
saw  where  somewhat  else  ought  to  have  been  to  see. 
P.'s  notion  is  that  the  wall  uniting  Palatine  and  Capitol 
passed  from  the  (Coelian)  end  of  the  Palatine  across  or 
near  the  site  of  the  present  Colisasum,  and  thence  severed 
the  Velian  from  the  Esquiline,  and  so  on  till  it  turns  up 
again  at  the  Forum  of  Augustus,  then  round  Capitol 
to  river,  to  Pulchrum  Littus  and  "home  again." 
What  I  saw  of  this  was  certainly  the  great  "  digging  " 

2  E 


4i 8  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

which  cuts  off  the  Velian,  one  of  the  grandest  fosses 
in  the  world  but  not  a  bit  too  big  for  the  scale  on  which 
builders  like  the  builders  of  the  wall  on  the  Aventine 
would  build.  There  was  certainly  a  time  when  this  cut 
the  Velian  off  from  the  Esquiline,  and  such  a  cutting 
off  must  have  united  it  somehow  with  the  Palatine,  no 
doubt,  and  so  far  Parker's  ground  seems  good.  But  at 
the  Colosseum  end  it  rests  on  the  number  of  enormous 
tufa  blocks  used  in  the  substructures  of  that  Amphi- 
theatre, tufa  being  a  stone  never  quarried  in  late  times, 
and  these  blocks  being  simply  from  the  old  wall  which 
"  lay  handy  "  for  Imperial  purposes.  I  own  it  seems 
possible  to  me  that  in  a  building  hastily  built  and  cost- 
ing such  enormous  sums,  the  builder  might  quite  con- 
ceivably quarry  tufa  for  the  substructures  though  it  had 
long  ceased  to  be  used  for  general  building  purposes. 
At  the  other  end  (Forum  of  Augustus)  we  have  the 
same  question.  Undoubtedly  there  are  the  tufa  blocks 
— used-up  relics  of  the  old  wall,  says  Parker.  But  is  it 
not  possible  to  use  their  presence  as  a  negative  of  his 
original  postulate — that  "  tufa  is  never  used  later,"  etc. 
— and  to  say  "  tufa  is  so  used,  and  you  see  it  used  so 
here  by  Augustus  and  in  the  Colosseum  by  the  Flavians." 
The  strongest  thing  in  favour  of  his  theory  is  his  state- 
ment that  the  base  of  the  Torre  de'  Conti  is  of  tufa 
blocks  ;  if  so  I  don't  see  what  it  could  have  been  but  a 
bastion-tower  of  this  "  Two-Hill "  wall ;  but  this  base  is 
now  hidden.  I  am  going  this  afternoon  to  see  the 
Pulchrum  Littus,  etc.,  and  may  perhaps  become  clearer 
as  to  this  wall,  but  I  don't  see  as  yet  that  it  is  proved. 
At  the  same  time  the  fosse  of  the  Velia  is  a  very  strong 
thing,  and  Parker  is  at  any  rate  entitled  to  be  listened 
to  very  carefully  on  the  whole  matter.  He  is  really 
very  sensible  on  all  subjects  save  Romulus  and  Remus. 

I  hope  you  were  comfortable  in  my  lodgings.     I  bade 
them  prepare  much  meat  and  drink. 

Good-bye. — Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  419 


To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
Monday,  June  21,  1875. 

I  wish  you  wouldn't  make  a  point  of  calling  on  the 
very  rare  occasions  when  I  steal  out  from  very  weari- 
ness of  being  in  and  alone,  dear  OJga.  I  am  going 
out  this  morning  after  an  imprisonment  of  a  couple 
of  days,  and  a  creepy  feeling  haunts  me  that  on  my 
return  I  shall  find  a  note  taunting  me  with  my  absence 
and  continual  festivities  !  If  you  would  only  behave 
like  a  sensible  Madchen  and  drop  down  here  bag  and 
baggage,  occupy  the  spare  bedroom  and  my  new  little 
back  sitting-room  and  copy  honestly  for  your  living, 
you  would  banish  from  your  fond  fancy  this  dream- 
image  of  a  strayed  Reveller,  and  see  me  as  I  am,  the 
most  steady  and  stay-at-home  of  men. 

As  to  copying  you  could  really  help  me  greatly  if 
you  would.  But  the  "  would  "  means  that  you  would 
look  on  it  in  a  business  light,  dear  Olga,  and  on  me  as 
you  look  on  Appleton,  if  only  A.  would  stump  up. 
Otherwise  you  doom  me  to  copy  for  myself.  Now 
come  over  and  talk  sensibly,  car  a  mia  arnica,  about 
this  matter.  With  you  behind  me  copying  and  chivy- 
ing, and  the  press  in  front  of  me  chivying  and  print- 
ing, I  should  soon  stumble  into  the  glory  of  four  or 
five  octavos.  I  am  musing  gloomily  on  the  Pirate 
Copy  which  has  arrived  from  New  York,  gorgeous  in 
form,  and  margin,  and  type,  a  fine  book,  but  a  Felon  ! 
As  I  look  on  it  my  dream  of  a  brougham  fades  away, 
and  I  fall  back  on  the  chance  of  a  market-cart  to  jog 
through  life  with. 

Don't  let  me  fade  into  a  "  green  mist,"  though  I 
am  always  Green  and  generally  missed.  Leave  that  to 
the  Paters.  As  you  know,  I  shall  never  be  a  Pater 
(unless  I  adopt  an  orfin  and  become  a  deputy-Pater). 
Write  a  pretty  postcard  and  tell  me  you  are  coming 
to  tea  with  me  on  such  and  such  a  day  in  a  business- 


420  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

like  and  affectionate  frame  of  mind.  Do,  or  I  will 
write  to  Seymour  Haden  for  one  of  his  wicked  works  ! 
— Ever  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
September  2,  1875. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  I  go  to  Haslemere,  the 
Roundells,  on  the  i5th  and  we  can  have  talk  on 
many  matters.  A  little  perhaps  on  the  Fraser  article, 
which  I  have  now  seen,  and  which  is  a  long  and  very 
violent  attack  on  me,  winding  up  with  a  short  but 
more  violent  attack  on  you.  You  are  a  bull-dog,  and 
I  know  not  what.  My  critics  come  in  for  almost 
harder  condemnation  than  I  myself.  The  writer  is  a 
clever  man,  and  clearly  a  careful  and  clear-headed 
man,  and  in  spite  of  his  violence  of  tone  I  should 
really  feel  grateful  to  him  for  pointing  out  so  many 
blunders  which  I  can  correct.  But  the  fact  that  I  can 
correct  them  shows  that  I  am  not  the  mere  historical 
Tichborne  he  paints  me.  There  are  slips,  careless  and 
discreditable  slips,  and  I  am  sorry  for  them.  But  they 
are  not  blunders  which  affect  the  book  itself ;  they  do 
not  show  a  real  misreading  of  this  period  or  that 
period  ;  they  are  not  the  sort  of  errors  which  betray 
an  unhistoric  mode  of  looking  at  the  course  of  things 
as  a  whole.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  what  he 
says  about  my  "  incapacity  for  sustained  attention," 
but  as  you  know  much  of  the  book  was  written  in 
moments  of  utter  weakness  and  ill-health,  when  writ- 
ing at  all  was  distasteful,  and  nothing  seemed  worth 
taking  pains  about.  Now  I  am  so  much  better  and 
merrier  I  wonder  how  in  those  years  of  physical  pain 
and  despondency  I  could  have  written  the  book  at  all. 

I  have  but  one  wish,  and  that  is  to  get  the  book 
right,  and  I  don't  like  to  feel  angered  at  anybody  who 
helps  me  to  do  this  as  this  Fraser  critic  does.  But,  as 
John  Morley  who  has  had  correspondence  with  him 


iv  LAST  YEARS  421 

says,  his  object  is  not  so  much  to  avenge  Truth  as  to 
avenge  Froude,  and  so  he  has  turned  what  might  have 
been  a  useful  criticism  into  a  fierce  attack  of  a  personal 
sort.  He  sums  up  all  the  misprints,  gathers  all  the 
errors  which  have  been  pointed  out  in  twenty  reviews, 
and  so  makes  a  terrible  list  in  which  to  work  out  his 
own  corrections.  But  these  are  far  from  being  in- 
fallible. In  what  he  laughs  at  as  my  height  of 
blundering,  the  death-scene  of  Chas.  II.,  I  am  follow- 
ing the  one  account  by  an  eye-witness  which  exists,  and 
he  follows  clearly  only  Macaulay's  account  which  is 
inaccurate.  So  in  Richard  III.'s  case,  as  Clements 
Markham  writes  to  me,  my  own  statement  is  right  and 
his  wrong. 

Anent  other  matters.  1  send  on  your  Thierry  re- 
ferences by  this  post  to  Furnivall.  Ranke's  use  of  the 
word  "  Anabaptist "  is  not  quite  the  confusion  it 
seems.  No  doubt  the  Independent  or  Congrega- 
tionalists  had  separated  from  the  Anabaptist  or  Baptist 
congregation  before  both  returned  to  England  in  1640. 
But  as  opposed  to  the  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians 
they  were  looked  on  by  their  opponents,  and  to  some 
extent  by  themselves,  as  one  body.  The  real  division 
was  between  the  two  ideas,  Church  (Episcopalian  or 
Presbyterian)  and  Congregation  (Baptist  or  Indepen- 
dent). This  is  the  key  to  the  whole  period  from  1640- 
1660  ;  and  as  I  have  said  in  my  book  it  only  ceased  to 
exist  as  a  radical  division  when  the  Act  of  Nonconformity 
threw  Presbyterian  and  Independent  and  Baptist  together 
whether  they  would  or  no,  and  superseded  the  old  dis- 
tinction by  that  of  Conformity  and  Nonconformity. 
During  the  Civil  War  the  old  phraseology  "  Ana- 
baptist "  is  commonly  used  for  both  Baptist  and 
Independent,  always  so  by  the  King  in  his  earlier 
proclamations,  if  I  remember  rightly,  and  to  a  great 
extent  by  the  Presbyterians.  J.  R.  GREEN. 


422  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET, 
November  1 1 ,  1875. 

[Professor  Stubbs  refers  to  the  incident  mentioned 
in  this  letter  in  his  last  Statutory  Public  Lecture,  May 
1884.  "Some  of  you  I  daresay  remember  a  para- 
graph that  went  the  round  of  the  September  papers 
years  ago  ;  and  told  how  two  persons,  a  stout  and 
pompous  professor  and  a  bright  ascetic  young  divine, 
met  in  a  railway-carriage  ;  how  the  burly  professor 
aired  his  erudition  by  a  little  history  lecture  (an 
anticipation  of  the  informal  instruction  of  the  Com- 
missioners) on  every  object  of  interest  that  was  passed 
on  the  road,  and  how  each  of  his  assumptions  and 
assertions  was  capped  by  an  answer  from  the  ascetic 
divine  which  showed  that  he  knew  it  all  and  knew  it 
better.  The  professor  at  last,  exasperated  by  the 
rejoinders,  broke  into  a  parody  of  the  famous  address 
.  of  Erasmus,  '  aut  Morus  aut  diabolus,'  substituting 
*  for  Morus  'Johnny  Green.'  "] 

I  am  so  sorry  to  have  missed  you,  dear  Freeman, 
through  my  triplet  to  Oxford,  from  which  I  came 
back  this  even.  I  should  like  to  have  heard  news 
from  the  Hadriatic,  especially  news  with  a  slight 
flavour  of  gunpowder  about  it.  How  odd  it  must 
feel  to  have  only  a  mountain  chain  between  one  and 
actual  fighting  —  fighting  too  which  looks  like  the 
small  beginning  of  so  great  an  end  !  Little  Evans — 
son  of  John  Evans  the  Great — has  just  come  back  from 
the  Herzegovina  which  he  reached  by  way  of  Lapland, 
having  started  from  the  Schools  in  excitement  at  the 
"  first "  I  wrung  for  him  out  of  the  obdurate  Stubbs, 
and  has  brought  back  lots  of  odd  gems,  very  Greek 
and  very  small,  with  Orphic  symbols  graven  on  them, 
too  wee  for  the  naked  eye  to  perceive.  Did  you  pick 
up  any  ?  Anent  Stubbs,  I  found  the  dear  old  boy 
much  adown  in  soul  concerning  that  story  of  him  and 


iv  LAST  YEARS  423 

me  and  the  Devil  which  got  into  the  papers,  and  which 
made  him  out,  he  saith,  "  a  boaster  and  a  blasphemer." 
Likewise  he  was  distraught  with  coveting  Deaneries 
(one  of  which  I  see  has  just  gone  to  Burgon  !  " prodit 
ergo "  from  S.  Mary's,  which  they  are  about  to  pull 
down).  I  think  I  laughed  and  comforted  him  out  of 
his  troubles,  and  he  has  promised  to  turn  Liberal  if 
Dizzy  don't  give  him  Ripon,  which  Dizzy  won't.  I 
went  to  one  of  his  private  lectures,  and  learnt  an 
awful  lot  about  the  politics  of  Richard  II. 's  time  ;  but 
there  were  only  ten  folk  there  beside  myself.  Is  not 
this  abominable  ?  The  old  chief  groans,  and  says  only 
the  Dutchmen  over  the  water  appreciate  him — they 
have  just  put  him  on  the  commission  for  editing  the 
Pertz  series,  but  so  long  as  you  and  Bryce  and  I  live 
there  will  be  three  Dutchmen  this  side  of  the  water 
will  appreciate  him  too  anyhow  ! 

Stubbs  is  <f  quite  sure  "  that  the  heathen  are  gather- 
ing together  against  the  whole  kith  and  kin  of  us,  and 
that  my  Irish  friends  in  Fraser  and  the  Dublin  are 
only  "  the  first  drops  of  a  coming  storm,"  of  which 
Max  Miiller's  pamphlet  on  Theodoric — Dietrich  is  a 
part.  I  think  this  is  all  fancy,  but  others  say  the 
same.  Anyhow,  if  it  is  to  come  I  hope  it  will  burst 
over  you  and  me  and  not  worry  the  dear  old  Professor 
who  is  terribly  sensitive  to  this  sort  of  writing.  I 
dined  with  Max  Mu'ller  on  Tuesday,  and  he  gave  me 
his  pamphlet,  but  said  you  and  he  were  "  old  friends  " 
and  you  would  understand  his  views.  It  seems  to  me  a 
very  weak  bit  of  work,  and  I  take  it  you  won't  need  all 
the  health  and  vigour  you  have  brought  home  from 
Dalmatia  to  dispose  of  it.  But  if  you  do  anything, 
stick  to  the  Theodoric  and  Max  matter  and  leave 
Kingsley  to  quiet.  He  was  a  good  fellow  if  he  was  a 
weak  Professor,  and  you  remember  he  told  me  frankly 
he  gave  up  his  Chair  because  your  criticisms  had  made 
him  feel  he  never  ought  to  have  taken  it.  Moreover, 
"  de  mortuis." 

I  met  Maine  and  had  a  long  chat  with  him  about 


424  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

you  and  many  things.  Likewise  Fitz- James  Stephen, 
Henry  Sidgwick,  Venn,  Dicey,  Lushington,  and  other 
nice  folk, — all  members  of  an  Ad  Eundem  Club  on  to 
which  I  have  been  chosen.  We  dined  at  Christ  Church, 
and  strove  after  dinner  to  get  out  of  "  the  House  "  by 
Canterbury  Gate.  But  we  were  withstood  by  a  proud 
young  porter  who  would  not  open  save  that  we  produced 
the  card  of  Harcourt  with  whom  we  had  dined.  Now 
Harcourt  had  left  Christ  Church  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
before.  So  we  put  three  Professors  to  the  front,  Maine, 
Bryce,  and  Henry  Smith  ;  but  the  proud  young  porter 
put  to  flight  the  three  professors.  Then  we  set  in  array 
the  Cambridge  men,  with  Fitz- James  Stephen  at  their 
head  ;  but  the  proud  young  porter  drove  back  the 
Cambridge  men.  Then  we  held  a  Gemot,  and  I  pro- 
posed that  we  should  camp  out  for  the  night  in  the 
midst  of  Canterbury  Mead  and  renew  the  fight  on  the 
morrow.  But  Bryce  the  wily  one  stole  from  the 
Gemot  and  privily  entreated  the  proud  young  porter, 
sending  his  "  Compliments  to  the  Dean,"  and  other 
wiliness,  and  so  being  tangled  in  his  talk  the  warder  let 
us  go  free.  But  see  how  great  a  thing  it  is  to  get  out 
of  "  the  House  "  ! 

I  stayed  two  days  with  Jowett,  who  thinks  rightly 
about  the  History  School,  and  quite  went  with  me  in 
desiring  more  "book"  and  less  "general  views."  So 
as  I  can't  get  anything  done  through  our  own  Board  of 
Studies,  I  think  I  shall  strive  to  move  the  School  through 
Jowett ! — Ever  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
December  1875. 

I  am  the  most  luckless  and  the  most  lucky  of  men, 

—luckless  in  missing   you, — lucky  in  having  such  a 

friend!     My  birthday  is  on  the  I2th, — but  I'll  shift  it 

to  the  9th  if  you  like,  only  it  will  give  me  three  days 

more  in  this  wretched  world  which  is  hardly  needful. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  425 

I  like  the  little  picters, — you  and  I  playing  with  the 
young  lambs  in  our  innocent  way  in  Spring-tide,  or 
walking  together  in  little  pinafores  under  our  big  um- 
brella in  the  snow  !  How  simple  and  artless  it  is,  how 
true  to  our  artlessness  and  simplicity  !  I  vow  I'll  go 
and  order  a  green  brolly  and  a  pinafore  to-morrow  ! 

I  met  Mrs.  A.  at  the  Macmillans  t'other  night, — 
she  was  really  nice  as  she  always  is  when  she  don't  mock. 
You  and  I  mock,  dear  Olga,  as  busy  mockers  mock, — 
lightly  and  gaily, — but  there  is  a  terrible  something  at 
the  bottom  of  Mrs.  A.'s  mockery  which  scares  me. 

I  am  going  to  get  up  your  present,  so  as  to  be  ready 
for  1876.  I  have  already  committed  to  memory  the 
dates  and  particulars  of  the  four  eclipses,  and  begin  to- 
morrow on  the  Bank  holidays  and  the  Law  Terms.  What 
shall  I  not  owe  you  ? — Good-bye.  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
February  26,  1876. 

[Refers  to  the  beginning  of  the  larger  history.]: 

I  saw  the  Athenaeum  attack.  When  the  new  book 
comes  out  I  expect  as  much  of  this  as  I  got  praise  on 
the  appearance  of  Little  Book.  There  is,  for  one  thing, 
the  natural  reaction  against  success  ;  then  there  are  my 
own  faults,  which  I  strive  to  correct  but  of  which 
plenty  are  sure  to  remain  ;  then  there  is  the  ill-will  of 
the  people  who  identify  me  with  the  "  Freeman-school  " ; 
then  there  is  the  inevitable  hostility  of  the  "  pragmatic 
historians"  as  the  Germans  call  them,  who  comprize 
pretty  well  all  the  really  historic  men  we  have.  The 
rest  I  can  bear,  but  I  shall  feel  keenly  the  condemna- 
tion of  these  last,  such  as  Gardiner  (just  as  I  felt  keenly 
those  words  of  Pauli).  I  respect  the  men,  and  I  know 
and  have  always  owned  how  good  and  valuable  their  work 
is,  nor  do  I  think  them  at  all  unjust  in  denouncing  me. 


426  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

It  is  very  natural  that,  working  as  they  do  to  bring  out 
the  actual  political  facts  and  clear  away  loose  talk,  they 
should  look  jealously  at  what  is  in  effect  a  protest 
against  their  whole  conception  of  history,  and  what 
must  look  to  many  of  them  an  attempt  to  bring  the 
loose  talk  back  again.  I  was  immensely  surprised  at 
their  praise  of  Little  Book  ;  it  showed  me — what  I  had 
always  held — that  no  Englishman  can  ever  really  sink 
into  the  mere  "pragmatic  "  standpoint  of  Germans  like 
Ranke  ;  but  I  felt  then  and  I  feel  still  that  after  all 
there  is  a  contradiction  between  their  notion  of  history 
and  mine,  and  I  shan't  blame  them  if  they  fight  for 
their  own. 

For  me,  however  lonely  I  feel  at  times  when  I  think 
his,  "  I  can  no  other,"  as  Luther  says.  Every  word 
I  have  written  in  reviews  and  essays  through  the  last 
ten  years  went  to  the  same  point,  to  a  protest,  that  is, 
against  the  tendency  to  a  merely  external  political  view 
of  human  affairs,  and  to  a  belief  that  political  history 
to  be  intelligible  and  just  must  be  based  on  social 
history  in  its  largest  sense.  I  have  never  wavered  from 
this.  Looking,  of  late,  over  the  notes  I  made  years 
ago  from  books  like  Orderic  and  M.  Paris,  I  see  in  me 
the  same  conviction,  the  same  attempt  to  get  at  men's 
lives  and  thoughts  and  feelings  as  a  necessary  condition 
of  judging  their  political  acts.  Well,  I  may  be  altogether 
wrong  in  my  theories,  but  it  is  better  for  me  to  hold  to 
what  I  think  true  and  to  work  it  out  as  I  best  can,  even 
if  I  work  it  out  badly,  than  to  win  the  good  word  even 
of  some  people  I  respect  and  of  other  people  I  love  (for 
you,  dear  Freeman,  would  like  it  all  the  better  if  I  wrote 
in  your  way  and  not  in  mine,  which  is  natural  enough). 
These  forthcoming  four  volumes  will  do  for  a  rough 
sketch  of  what  I  mean  ;  if  I  live,  I  can  make  them  better 
and  better ;  if  not,  I  shall  have  said  my  say,  even  with 
"  stammering  lips." 

Two  things  at  any  rate,  I  am  certain  of, — first,  how- 
ever imperfect  my  work  may  be,  it  goes  on  the  old 
traditional  line  of  English  historians.  However 


iv  LAST  YEARS  427 

Gibbon  may  have  been  misled  by  Voltaire's  habit  of 
massing  his  social  facts  in  chapters  apart ;  however  weak 
Hume's  social  attempts  may  be ;  however  much 
Macaulay  may  look  on  social  facts  simply  as  external 
bits  of  ornament,  all  profess  the  faith  I  hold.  Amidst 
all  Palgrave's  vague  rhetoric,  he  throughout  strives  to 
ground  his  facts  on  a  realization  of  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious temper  of  the  time. 

And  then,  secondly,  I  see  that  even  those  English 
historians  who  nowadays  strive  to  be  merely  external 
and  "  pragmatic "  (not  being  High  Dutchmen)  cant. 
Contrast  your  tone  with  Pauli's  for  instance,  or  even 
Gardiner's  with  Ranke.  We  English  folk  live  in 
free  human  air,  and  it  is  impossible  to  us  to  sink 
into  mere  "paper -chasers."  And  so  I  don't  doubt 
that  the  English  ideal  of  history  will  in  the  long  run 
be  what  Gibbon  made  it  in  his  day,  the  first  in  the  world  ; 
because  it  can  alone  combine  the  love  of  accuracy 
and  external  facts  with  the  sense  that  government  and 
outer  facts  are  but  the  outcome  of  individual  men,  and 
men  what  body,  mind,  and  spirit  make  them. — Yours 
affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

The  view  of  history  here  put  forward  may  be  illus- 
trated by  a  sentence  in  which  Green  on  one  occasion 
expressed  his  feeling  as  to  the  history  he  desired  to 
write.  "  I  shall  never  be  content  till  I  have  superseded 
Hume,  and  I  believe  I  shall  supersede  him — not  because 
I  am  so  good  a  writer,  but  because,  being  an  adequate 
writer,  I  have  a  larger  and  grander  conception  than  he 
had  of  the  organic  life  of  a  nation  as  a  whole." 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
March  1 8,  1876. 

[The  Stray  Studies  from  England  and  Italy,  here 
called  "  Square  Book  "  from  its  original  form,  had  just 
appeared,  and  Freeman  had  complained  of  some  of  the 


428  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

papers  included.  In  1875  Green  visited  Sir  M.  E. 
Grant -Duff  at  Hampden ;  who  thus  describes  the 
impression  made  on  him  :  "  Green,  whom  the  more 
I  see  of  him,  the  more  I  think  likely  to  be,  if  he  lives, 
the  greatest  English  historian  who  has  yet  been,  with 
the  exception  of  Gibbon"  (Diary,  i.  116).  "I  never 
had  it  so  much  brought  home  to  me,"  he  wrote  to 
Green  in  1883,  "that  the  real  historian  is  an  animal 
different  from  and  of  a  superior  order  to  ordinary 
human  beings  who  possess  the  power  of  narration  as  I 
did  when  I  saw  the  effect  produced  on  your  mind  by 
the  view  from  Whiteleaf  Cross."  The  passage  in  the 
History  (vol.  iii.  p.  176)  was,  as  Green  told  Sir  M.  E. 
Grant-Duff  in  1877,  inspired  by  his  drives  through 
the  Hampden  country.] 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — Thanks  many  for  your  cor- 
rections and  suggestions  on  my  sheets, — of  course  your 
praise  was  an  encouragement  just  now.  I  will  go  over 
the  whole  with  a  view  to  removing  that  air^of  cock-sure- 
ness  which  you  notice,  and  which  would  certainly  be  a 
fault.  But  substantially  I  have  in  no  case  (at  least 
consciously)  gone  beyond  what  Stubbs  and  Guest  have 
said  before  me.  Only  when  one  puts  their  conclusions 
by  themselves  as  facts,  and  works  them  up  into  pictures 
by  help  of  a  study  of  the  geographical  and  archaeological 
data  which  one  can  get  hold  of,  no  doubt  the  result  is  a 
bit  more  positive  than  one  intended.  But  I  think  this 
can  be  remedied  by  a  few  words  here  and  there.  I  still 
look  on  the  whole  story  as  one  which  is  a  mere  outline 
of  what  it  might  be  if  one  could  devote  oneself  to  a  full 
and  detailed  study  of  the  ground,  and  of  the  remains — 
roads — inscriptions  etc.,  of  Roman  Britain.  The  bit  of 
work  I  did  for  myself  (having  no  Guest  help)  in  the 
campaign  against  Aylesbury,  Newbury,  etc.  which  I  was 
able  to  study  by  Grant  Duff's  driving  me  about  when  I 
stayed  at  Hampden  showed  me  how  much  might  be  done. 
What  did  you  think  of  those  coincidences  of  the  old 
Roman  Town -boundaries  with  the  modern  county- 


iv  LAST  YEARS  429 

borders  ?  I  own  I  leapt  with  joy  when  I  saw  for  the 
first  time  why  Oxfordshire  was  shaped  like  a  double 
pudding  bag. 

My  own  belief  is  that  Engle  is  the  older  name  of  the 
whole  folk.  But  I  have  no  right  to  set  myself  against 
all  you  wise  people  on  the  point, — and  above  all  in 
a  popular  book  where  I  can't  give  my  reasons.  So  I 
will  change  matters  as  Stubbs  and  you  wish, — for  the 
present. 

I  took  it  that  most  people  would  say  what  you  say 
about  the  lighter  papers  in  Square  Book.  But  I  resolved 
to  have  one  book  at  least  to  my  own  taste  when  I  have 
to  write  volume  after  volume  in  compliance  with  other 
peoples'  taste ;  and  as,  rightly  or  wrongly,  I  think 
"  Children  by  the  Sea  "  the  most  perfect  literary  thing  I 
have  ever  done,  and  as  I  have  no  sort  of  sympathy  with 
the  feeling  which  puts  social  essays  below  historical 
volumes,  or  Addison  beneath  Gibbon,  I  told  Macmillan 
he  must  publish  this  book  for  my  reading,  and  not  for 
the  world's.  He  has  made  so  much  from  Little  Book 
that  he  can  afford  to  drop  a  couple  of  hundred  on 
"  Square." 

I  have  just  looked  over  your  set  of  Architectural 
Essays  in  Italy.  They  are  full  of  valuable  and  sugges- 
tive matter  ;  is  it  too  late  to  suggest  that  you  should  use 
them  as  materials  for  a  book  rather  than  as  essays  in 
their  present  form  ?  At  any  rate,  if  you  publish  them 
as  they  are,  I  think  you  would  greatly  increase  the  value 
of  the  book,  and  further  its  sale,  by  putting  at  the  very 
beginning  a  paper  on  early  Romanesque,  expanding  what 
you  have  said  at  the  opening  of  "  Romanesque  Archi- 
tecture in  Venetia,"  and  pointing  clearly  out  the  general 
conclusions  to  which  your  Italian  studies  in  that  matter 
have  led  you.  This  should  be  well  illustrated  with  little 
drawings  of  such  things  as  "  mid-wall  shafts  "  of  which 
ninety-nine  readers  out  of  a  hundred  know  nothing,  etc. 
These  little  engravings  inserted  in  the  page  are  now 
done  easily  and  very  cheaply,  and  save  a  vast  deal  of 
"  explaining  "  in  words.  With  this  prefatory  paper  the 


430  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

readers  would  have  a  clue  to  the  thought  and  purpose 
of  the  after  essays  which  would  double  his  interest.  I 
am  quite  sure  that  it  would  have  a  great  effect  on  the 
circulation  of  the  book.  But  I  don't  think  you  must 
expect  this  to  be  large,  as  so  few  people  care  about  the 
technical  part  of  architecture.  I  am  afraid,  too,  that,— 
in  spite  of  your  explanation, — the  geographical  whirl- 
ings about  from  one  part  of  the  world  to  another,  and 
yet  more  the  chronological  backwards  and  forwards  will 
be  much  against  it.  However,  I  need  not  bother  you 
with  these  things  as  I  submitted  them  to  you  before,  and 
you  were  unable  to  avail  yourself  of  them.  But  I  think 
you  might  consider  my  suggestion  about  the  introduc- 
tion. 

I  note  a  phraze  which  might  be  mistaken  about  the 
Fondaco  dei  Turchi  at  Venice.  It  belonged  not  to 
Turks  but  to  Venetian  merchants  trading  with  Turkey, 
just  as  an  E.  India  House  did  not  belong  to  Hindoos  ! 

I  have  tried  three  people  with  "Venetian  March," 
and  they  all  take  it  for  a  piece  of  music.  Could  you 
say  "  Border  Land  ?  " 

I  am  still, — as  I  was  years  agone, — in  amaze  at  your 
hatred  of  Italian  names  for  Italian  churches.  I  could 
bear  every  name  in  English  or  every  name  in  Latin,— 
eccentric  as  the  last  w.ould  be.  But  why  "  we  have 
spoken  of  the  Duomo  of  S.  Fredianus,  and  of  S. 
Michael  ?  "  No  Lucchese  person  says  S.  Fredianus  or 
S.  Michael — no  person  talks  of  S.  Paulus  of  London  or 
drives  to  S.  Dionysius  near  Paris.  It  looks  simply  as  if 
you  had  a  contempt  for  Italian  as  a  language  which  one 
ought  to  avoid  using  even  when  dealing  with  Italy. 
"  S.  Petronio  "  at  Bologna  is  known  everywhere, — why 
talk  of  S.  Petronius  ?  I  have  stayed  a  month  in  Verona 
and  never  heard  of  "  S.  Firmus."  At  any  rate,  if  you 
do  this  to  Italy  do  it  to  Germany  and  France.  I  must 
say  it  rather  riles  me  that  you  should  make  people  think 
you  despise  the  dear  land  over  the  Alps.  Good-bye.— 
Ever  affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  431 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET, 
March  21,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — In  working  your  corrections 
into  my  text,  I  find  myself  in  a  difficulty  which  I  must 
face  before  I  can  go  on  printing,  and  in  which  I  should 
be  glad  of  your  help.  As  I  told  you,  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  yield  to  you,  Stubbs,  and  Bryce  on  the 
"  English"  question  ;  and  I  have  been  going  through  my 
proofs  resolving  the  word  wherever  it  occurs  into  "Jute" 
or  "  Saxon  "  as  the  case  may  be.  But  I  find  I  must  have 
some  rule  to  go  by,  and  as  yet  I  am  without  one.  I  find 
myself  without  any  sort  of  guide  as  to  the  date  when  it 
becomes  right  to  speak  of  a  Jute  or  a  Saxon  as  English- 
men. The  old  rule  was  to  state  that  in  800  Ecgberht 
made  Angle  and  Saxon  into  Anglo-Saxon  ;  and  that 
in  1066  William  made  Anglo  -  Saxon  +  Norman  into 
Englishmen.  Then  came  the  Lappenberg  asra  which 
took  them  as  Anglo-Saxon  from  the  beginning  till 
1066,  and  then  made  Anglo- Saxon  +  Norman  into 
Englishmen.  Then  came  the  early-Freeman-and-Guest 
time  in  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  wholly  abolished, 
and  Englishmen  were  held  to  have  been  in  the  begin- 
ning, are  now,  and  ever  shall  be.  Now  we  have  reached 
the  late-Freeman-and-Stubbs-and-High-Dutchmen-time 
in  which  Englishmen  are  held  not  to  have  been  in  the 
beginning,  but  to  have  come  into  being — when  ? 

I  have  never  seen  any  way  of  accounting  for  the 
use  of  the  word  "  English "  by  a  West  Saxon  or  a 
Jute  at  any  time,  save  by  taking  it  to  have  been 
throughout  the  general  name  of  the  whole  people, 
the  older  general  name  which  underlay  the  special  de- 
signations of  Saxon  or  Jute.  On  any  other  theory  one 
has  to  suppose  a  taking  up  of  the  name  at  some  time 
or  other,  for  which  there  is  no  evidence,  and  at  a  time 
which  it  is  impossible  to  fix. 


432  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

But  I  really  don't  want  to  raise  the  question  in 
general.  I  am  quite  ready  to  give  way — only  I  do 
want  some  sort  of  rule.  As  to  the  only  people  I 
really  care  about  (for  you  know  I  was  born  the  right 
side  of  the  Thames)  there  is  no  difficulty.  Thank 
God  they  always  called  themselves  Englishmen  (for 
with  Baeda's  "  Angli "  staring  me  in  the  face  I  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  making  imaginary  differences 
between  "  Engle "  and  "  English,"  making  in  other 
words  one  people  out  of  a  substantive,  and  another 
out  of  an  adjective  !).  It  is  merely  for  those  wretched 
Jutes  and  benighted  Saxons  that  I  am  concerned. 
When — on  the  present  theory — am  I  to  take  it  that 
God  gave  them  the  grace  to  bear  the  name  of  English- 
men ? — Ever  yours  in  haste,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET, 
March  24,  1876. 

Thanks  for  your  explanations  of  this  morning,  my 
dear  Freeman.  They  come  to  this,  I  suppose,  that  Jutes 
and  West-Saxons  and  East-Saxons  can  only  properly  be 
called  English  from  Alfred's  time  ;  but  that  by  a  con- 
ventional usage  the  term  may  be  employed  beforehand 
in  general  cases,  so  as  to  express  the  after-unity  of  the 
people  at  large,  and  our  identity  with  them.  Tou 
would  limit  this  "  beforehand  "  by  the  date  449  while 
/  carry  it  further  back.  But  if  one  is  careful  to 
point  out  that  whether  on  this  or  that  side  of  449 
the  word  is  used  in  this  conventional  and  anticipatory 
way  ;  and  if  one  removes  (as  I  removed  a  month 
ago)  all  phrazes  which  imply  a  real  use  of  the  word 
by  the  people  themselves,  I  don't  think  any  one  can 
reasonably  object.  And  this  I  think  I  can  do  without 
"  notes  "  or  "  appendices."  Of  course  my  only  aim  is 
to  drive  into  my  readers'  heads  from  the  very  opening 
that  they  are  not  reading  about  "  furriners,"  and 
perhaps  what  you  denounce  as  over-statements  in  Little 


iv  LAST  YEARS  433 

Book  have  done  good  in  this  way,  just  by  dint  of 
their  being  over-statements. 

But  as  I  said  before,  speaking  simply  for  myself, 
and  not  as  a  writer,  etc.,  I  see  only  one  fact — that  at 
the  very  first  time  these  people  get  a  chance  of  telling 
us  about  themselves  in  their  own  tongue,  they  call  all 
(Jutes  and  Saxons  alike)  English,  and  the  tongue  of 
all  English  too.  Of  this  being  the  result  of  a  "  pro- 
cess "  of  change,  of  their  "  beginning  to  feel  one  people 
and  call  themselves  by  a  common  name,"  I  see  no 
evidence  whatever.  .  .  . 

It  is  odd  that  I  was  saying  to  Bryce  two  nights 
back  just  what  you  say  in  your  note,  that  the  one 
difficulty  really  in  the  way  of  the  whole  matter  is  the 
existence  and  greatness  of  the  Old  Saxon. 

Pray  pat  me  on  the  head  for  my  submissiveness  and 
obedience. — Ever  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  A.  Macmillan 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  June  15,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  MACMILLAN  —  I  have  now  given  the 
subject  of  an  Historical  Review  all  the  consideration 
I  can,  and  have  come  to  a  definite  conclusion  that 
none  of  the  projects  which  have  as  yet  been  suggested 
is  likely  to  command  a  practical  success. 

It  is  necessary  at  the  outset  to  recall  what  the 
original  notion  of  such  a  review  was,  and  why  such  an 
organ  was  desired.  What  Ward  and  Bryce  wanted 
was  just  what  Germany  and  now  France  possesses,  a 
purely  scientific  organ  of  historical  criticism,  and  means 
of  information  as  to  the  progress  of  historical  study 
at  home  and  abroad.  This  was  a  perfectly  definite 
scheme,  and  one  of  real  utility  ;  one  too  which  would 
undoubtedly  raise  sympathy  and  secure  even  unpaid 
support  among  a  certain  section  of  historic  scholars. 
But  its  character  was  to  be  scientific  and  not  popular, 
and  the  literary  tone  of  articles  was  to  be  entirely 
subordinate  to  their  critical  character. 

2  F 


434  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

I  recall  this  because  it  marks  precisely  the  aim 
which  the  projectors  of  the  Review  had  at  first,  and 
the  aim  which,  amidst  all  subsequent  changes,  they  have 
kept  in  view.  To  the  purely  historic  scholars  who  would 
form  the  backbone  of  its  staff,  the  end  of  the  Review 
would  be  this  and  no  other.  If  literary  treatment  or 
notices  of  current  events  or  political  events  were 
admitted,  they  would  simply  be  regarded  as  means  of 
securing  the  publication  of  the  critical  matter  which  they 
succeeded  in  floating.  But  they  would  create  no  interest 
or  next  to  none  among  the  writers  who  would  under- 
take the  purely  historical  work.  Their  interest  would 
be  wholly  with  what  remained  of  the  original  plan. 

Such  a  plan  being  found  impracticable,  I  suggested 
the  modification  of  it  which  has  served  as  a  basis  of  our 
negotiations.  Retaining  the  strictly  historical  char- 
acter of  original  articles,  reviews,  and  notes  of  historic 
progress  at  home  and  abroad,  I  suggested  that  in  these 
as  in  all  its  contents  literary  excellence  should  be 
required ;  and  that  a  larger  circulation  might  be 
obtained  ;  ( i )  by  including  in  each  number  an  elucida- 
tion of  some  pressing  subject  of  the  day  from  a  purely 
historic  point  of  view  (e.g.  in  this  present  state  of 
the  Turkish  question,  a  detail  of  the  internal  history 
of  Turkey,  its  reforms,  etc.,  from  the  close  of  the 
Crimean  War  till  now  ;  or  should  questions  affecting 
the  Church  come  into  prominence  an  examination  of 
the  relative  weight  of  the  Church  and  the  Non-con- 
formist bodies  at  each  stage  in  our  history  from  the 
Reformation)  ;  (2)  by  inserting  in  each  number  careful 
and  philosophical  biographies  of  persons  of  contem- 
porary eminence  ;  (3)  by  claiming  for  historic  treat- 
ment the  outer  history  of  literature,  science,  etc.,  in 
their  direct  relations  to  national  life  ;  and  (4)  by  closing 
each  number  with  a  summary  of  European  events 
during  the  quarter,  done  by  some  semi-political  semi- 
scientific  person  like  Grant  Duff.  I  still  think  this 
plan  the  best  which  has  been  proposed  ;  but  the  objec- 
tions to  it  are  grave.  It  falls,  like  all  schemes  of  the 


iv  LAST  YEARS  435 

kind,  between  two  stools.  Such  a  review  would  in 
great  part  be  too  scientific  for  the  general  reader  — 
not  indeed  to  read,  but  to  take  any  real  interest  in. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  too  popular  in  form  to 
secure  any  warm  or  enthusiastic  sympathy  from  those 
who  desire  a  scientific  organ  of  historical  research. 
Its  almost  inevitable  tendency  would  be  as  the  desire 
for  "success"  pressed  on  editor  and  publisher  to 
become  more  and  more  popular,  and  less  and  less 
scientific  in  tone.  And  this  would  simply  bring  the 
Review  to  the  level  of  those  Quarterlies  which  at 
present  exist — better  written,  it  may  be — and  with  a 
greater  repute  for  "  information "  and  accuracy,  but 
still  hardly  distinguishable  from  a  very  superior 
number  of  the  Edinburgh,  and  cut  off  from  resources 
which  the  Edinburgh  possesses, — the  resource  of  a 
settled  political  tradition,  and  above  all  the  ability  to 
secure  in  each  quarter  what  variety  of  subjects  one  likes. 
Remember  what  reviews  of  travels,  for  instance,  or 
of  great  scientific  works,  or  of  great  literary  works, 
have  done  for  our  Quarterlies,  and  consider  what  would 
be  the  chance  of  a  rival  review,  hardly  distinguishable 
from  them  in  character  by  the  general  reader,  and  cut 
off  from  such  subjects  of  general  interest  as  these. 

It  was,  I  think,  a  just  sense  of  these  difficulties, 
and  of  the  chance  which  such  a  plan  presented  of 
compromising  the  political  character  of  the  review 
without  really  securing  a  popular  sale,  which  made 
Ward  press  for  a  more  distinct  political  line.  To 
this,  however,  the  objections  seem  to  me  fatal.  It 
would  militate  even  more  against  the  historical 
authority  which  such  an  organ  was  intended  to  possess  ; 
it  would  inevitably  cut  off  from  it — if  not  the  whole 
literary  aid — at  any  rate  the  warm  sympathy  of  some 
of  our  more  prominent  historical  scholars  (I  am  assum- 
ing the  tone  of  its  politics  to  be  liberal)  ;  while  the 
political  divisions  of  the  liberal  party  just  now  would 
throw  its  political  direction  into  the  hands  of  some 
section  of  Liberalism,  whose  support  would  be  of  little 


436  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

value.  The  more  I  reflect  the  less  chance  of  success 
does  there  seem  to  be  for  either  of  these  two  last- 
named  schemes, — my  own  or  Ward's.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  what  those  who  need  an  historic  organ  had 
better  do,  would  be  to  recur  to  the  original  plan  of  a 
small  and  purely  scientific  publication,  counting  on  a 
small  circulation  supported  by  a  list  of  subscribers,  and 
written  without  payment.  This,  however,  requires 
simply  a  printer  not  a  publisher. 

For  myself,  even  independently  of  these  general 
considerations  as  to  the  success  of  such  a  review 
I  do  not  see  in  any  case  my  way  to  undertaking  the 
conduct  of  it.  It  is  better  to  say  plainly  that  as 
things  stand  now  I  do  not  possess  that  confidence  of 
historic  scholars  which  the  editor  of  such  an  organ 
must  possess.  I  should  be  looked  upon  then  by  the 
bulk  of  them  as  a  person  imposed  on  the  review  by 
the  unhappy  necessity  of  securing  a  publisher  and  a 
popular  circulation,  and  as  the  representative  not  of  the 
scientific  but  of  the  non-scientific  element  in  it.  The 
justice  of  this  is  not  to  the  purpose  here  ;  but  I  must 
own  that  for  my  own  part  I  feel  my  historic 
tendencies  to  be  sufficiently  at  variance  with  the  general 
tendency  of  historic  research  just  now  to  give  such 
sentiments  a  certain  colour  of  truth.  In  any  case,  their 
existence  would  be  fatal  to  that  warm  support  which 
could  alone  enable  an  editor  to  conduct  such  a  review. 

I  have  other  and  as  important  work  to  do,  and 
my  health  gives  me  small  time  to  do  it  in.  I  own  too 
I  shall  feel  freer  in  the  doing  it  if  I  am  not  placed  in 
an  official  relation  towards  a  number  of  historic  scholars 
who  sympathise  little  or  not  at  all  with  what  I  want 
to  do  in  the  writing  of  history,  and  who  would  prob- 
ably feel  themselves  disagreeably  compromised  by  a 
connection  with  the  doer  of  it.  I  have,  therefore, 
resolved  to  decline  finally  the  post  of  editor  of  such 
a  review. 

I  fear  this  is  a  terribly  long  letter.  But  I  do  not 
wish  to  return  to  the  subject,  unless  new  and  more 


iv  LAST  YEARS  437 

likely  plans  are  suggested,  and  I  thought  it  better  to 
say  here  all  I  had  to  say. — I  am,  dear  Macmillan, 
faithfully  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W.,    • 
August  30,  1876. 

[Freeman's  new  works  are  Historical  and  Archi- 
tectural Sketches •,  1876;  and  History  and  Conquests  of 
the  Saracens^  1856  (new  edition  in  1876).] 

You  are  responsible  for  grave  excesses  last  night, 
dear  Freeman  ;  for  the  arrival  of  your  two  new  books 
kept  me  up  to  what  Clark  calls  "  that  Godless  hour  of  mid- 
night." However,  I  ran  through  all  the  Saracens  and 
most  of  the  Sketches  before  I  got  to  bed  ;  which  shows 
that  you  have  one  devoted  reader  in  the  world.  The 
Saracen  is  an  old  friend,  which  I  found  I  remembered 
well  though  I  read  it  seven  years  ago,  and  which  I 
still  put  in  some  ways  high  among  your  works.  That 
is  to  say  it  condescends  a  good  deal  more  to  your 
readers  than  your  later  work  does.  When  you  wrote 
it  you  had  clearly  a  much  closer  sense  of  what  people 
know,  and  what  people  don't  know,  than  you  have  now. 
Perhaps  this  is  because  you  were  addressing  not  readers 
but  hearers — for  I  noted  the  same  characteristics  in  your 
Welsh  address  which  has  served  as  accompaniment  to 
my  luncheon.  By-the-bye,  I  rejoiced  much  over  "  the 
sacred  Tor"  of  Glastonbury.  In  this  way  the  book 
stands  wonderfully  in  contrast  with  the  Sketches^  which 
assume  in  their  readers  a  wondrous  knowledge  of  his- 
torical and  Italian  matters — not  to  mention  "  midwall 
shafts."  Of  course,  I  wish  you  could  have  found  time 
to  put  in  two  or  three  chapters  on  "Crusades,"  "Turks," 
and  "  Fall  of  Mahommedanism  "  down  to  Khiva  and 
Bokhara  conquests,  but  you  are  right  not  to  stop  more 
important  work  for  this.  I  noted  too  with  a  little 
amusement  what  I  always  note  in  myself,  the  inevitable 
effect  of  Gibbon  on  one's  style  after  a  good  reading  ot 


438  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

him.  "  I  hasten  to  account,"  and  a  lot  of  such  phrases 
are  absolute  Gibbon.  By-the-bye,  do  you  really  adopt 
the  burning  of  Alexandrian  library  by  Omar  ? 

•  •**•• 

For  me — I  am  just  now  pretty  well,  and  so  working 
hard.  I  find  myself  obliged  to  let  my  book  take  its 
own  way,  and  so  have  only  got  to  the  eve  of  the 
Conquest.  It  is  possible  after  all  that  my  first 
volume  may  not  get  beyond  1070.  What  makes  it  so 
big  is  the  attempt  I  am  making  to  take  a  more 
European  view  of  matters  than  I  did,  and  I  find  that 
"  ultramarine  is  a  colour  which  spreads  a  good  way 
over  the  canvas.  Just  now  I  am  wild  with  excitement 
at  the  results  which  come  out  if  one  works  English, 
Norman,  and  Papal  history  side  by  side — say  from 
1047-53.  Of  course  my  conclusions  or  rather  sugges- 
tions may  turn  out  very  wild  hitting  ;  but  with  me  the 
impulse  to  try  to  connect  things,  to  find  the  "  why  "  of 
things,  is  irresistible  ;  and  even  if  I  overdo  my  political 
guesses,  you  or  some  German  will  punch  my  head,  and 
put  things  rightly  and  unintelligibly  again.  I  can  only 
work  in  my  own  way,  and  when  I  find  facts  which 
wont  tell  or  even  hint  their  "  why "  I  find  I  lose  all 
pleasure  in  working  and  simply  take  to  Miss  Braddon. 

There  is  a  chance  that — if  other  folks  will  go — I 
may  go  to  Algiers  for  the  winter  instead  of  Capri.  I 
should  like  to  touch  the  East — even  if  it  were  but  with 
one  little  finger — and  an  East  too  French-varnished. 
I  fancy  too  that  just  as  I  got  a  new  way  of  looking 
at  Northern  matters  from  my  stay  in  Italy,  I  may  get 
a  new  way  of  looking  at  all  Christian  and  European 
matters  by  sojourning  on  African  ground  a  few  months. 
A  "  nigger-view  "  of  history  would  be  a  novelty. 

Let  us  hope  you  have  set  somebody  writing  a 
History  of  Wales — even  if  it  starts  a  bit  short  of  the 
Flood.  One  is  really  all  at  sea.  For  instance,  I  see  you 
make  Cadwallon  (Hevensfield  C.)  a  Strathclydean 
leader  somewhere.  Why  ?  The  common  books  about 
Wales  say  "  ap-Gwynnedd."  Of  course  Strathclyde  is 


iv  LAST  YEARS  439 

the   likelier  for   the   run   of  the   story,  but  I  did  not 
venture  to  doubt  the  Welshmen. 

Good-bye. — Ever  yours  affectionately, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 

4  BEAUMONT  STREET,  W., 
October  9,  1876. 

I  read  your  I.  R.  on  Spanish  chronicles  with  a  good 
deal  of  pleasure,  dear  M.  I  hope  it  means  you  are  setting 
in  earnest  to  the  history  of  early  Spain.  Every  cobbler 
loves  his  own  last,  and  you  won't  quarrel  with  me  for 
preferring  English  to  Spanish  history,  or  for  demurring 
to  your  statement  about  the  superiority  of  Spanish 
chronicles  to  those  of  other  lands.  Surely  a  series 
which  begins  in  the  thirteenth  century  is  a  very  young 
and  pickaninny  series.  How  can  it  compare  in  interest 
with  English  or  Italian  or  German  or  French  chronicles  ; 
and  as  to  the  individual  chroniclers  has  Spain  any  really 
of  the  same  intellectual  level  as  Villani,  Froissart,  and 
Commines,  the  German  historian  of  Frederick  I.,  or  the 
English  historian  of  Henry  III.  ?  However  you  are 
quite  right  to  fall  in  love  with  your  subject, — nobody 
does  any  good  with  any  work  he  does  not  fall  extrava- 
gantly in  love  with.  That  is  why  all  the  cool-headed 
young  Oxford  men  fail  to  do  any  good  in  the  world. 
And  with  what  you  say  of  the  dramatic  superiority  of 
Spanish  history  up  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  I  go 
wholly.  It  is  great  luck  to  have  the  Moor  always  to 
peg  away  at ;  greater  luck  to  have  two  religions,  two 
civilizations,  two  social  and  ecclesiastical  developements 
always  face  to  face.  I  have  but  one  fear.  It  is  sug- 
gested by  your  own  talk  about  Arabic  at  the  end  of  the 
article.  Shall  you  wait  to  begin  till  you  can  read 
Arabic  ?  Pray  do  not  fix  the  appearance  of  the  book 
for  the  Greek  Kalends.  It  is  only  the  weak  people  who 
long  for  an  impossible  perfection,  and  so  never  reach 
even  the  possible  imperfect. 

Anyhow,    dear    M.,    begin,   and   begin   your   book. 


440  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Don't  do  "  Studies  "  and  that  sort  of  thing.  I  see  how 
much  time  I  wasted  in  that  way, — time  I  can't  get 
back  again.  Begin  your  book  and  begin  it  at  the  begin- 
ning. One's  book  teaches  one  everything  as  one  writes 
it ;  it  forbids  one  to  pick  and  choose  ;  it  forces  one  to 
face  the  difficulties  ;  it  gradually  gets  a  power  of  its  own 
over  one  and  makes  one  think  and  write  better  than  one 
could  think  and  write  apart  from  it.  Above  all,  it  takes 
hold  of  one.  It  draws  one  to  the  desk.  It  creates  a 
taste  for  work  and  for  continuous  work ;  it  begets  a 
longing  to  see  the  thoughts  that  crowd  on  one  as  one 
works  it  out, — to  see  the  thing  "  finished." 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

25    CONNAUGHT  STREET, 

December  I,  1876. 

\Ginx 's  Baby  (1870),  which  made  a  great  sensation 
at  the  time,  was  written  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Jenkins,  member 
for  Dundee  from  1874  to  1880.] 

You  see  I  am  in  new  quarters,  dear  Freeman, — 
quarters  very  nigh  to  Bryce,  with  a  noisy  street  afore 
me,  and  behind  me  a  quiet  graveyard  where  lieth 
Laurence  Sterne.  I  have  got  four  rooms,  so  that  I 
can  buy  a  few  more  books, — in  these  days  of  Norman 
Conquests  in  five  volumes  of  a  thousand  pages  each 
books  are  great  space  devourers, — and  have  made  them 
a  bit  daintier  and  prettier  than  the  rooms  of  old.  When 
shall  you  come  and  see  them  ? 

Possibly  you  may  come  to  the  Conference  on  Eastern 
matters.  I  have  been  to  one  Committee  meeting, 
gaining  little  from  it  of  instruction  in  Turkic  affairs, 
but  getting  a  sight  of  "  Ginx"  without  his  Baby,  whereat 
I  rejoiced.  Likewise  I  rejoiced  to  see  the  poet  Morris, 
— whom  Oliphant  setteth  even  above  you  for  his  un- 
Latinisms — brought  to  grief  by  being  prayed  to  draw 
up  a  circular  on  certain  Eastern  matters  and  gravelled 
to  find  "  English  words."  I  insidiously  persuaded 
him  that  the  literary  committee  had  fixed  on  him  to 


iv  LAST  YEARS  441 

write  one  of  a  series  of  pamphlets  which  Gladstone 
wants  brought  out  for  the  public  enlightenment,  and 
that  the  subject  assigned  him  was  "  The  Results  of  the 
Incidence  of  Direct  Taxation  on  the  Christian  Rayah," 
but  that  he  was  forbidden  to  speak  of  the  "  onfall  of 
straight  geld,"  or  other  such  "  English  "  forms.  I  left 
him  musing  and  miserable.  I  am  still  loyal  to  the  great 
man  at  Hawarden  ;  but  why  does  he.  set  us  little  folk 
to  speak  and  himself  so  resolutely  hold  his  peace  ? 
And  why  does  he  want  us  to  publish  a  paper  called 
The  Star  in  the  East?  I  suggested  that  we  should  ask 
him  if  we  could  get  the  Magi  to  edit  it.  Seriously,  I 
don't  think  any  good  thing  will  come  out  of  the  Con- 
ference. The  people  that  know  anything  about  the 
question  in  it  are  (save  Bryce  and  one  or  none  else) 
mere  "  Christian  sympathisers,"  and  the  people  who 
would  take  a  really  political  view  seem  to  know  nothing 
of  the  facts.  I  think  you  will  like  Bryce's  article  in 
the  Fortnightly.  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  me  to  have 
him  so  near,  and  to  find  our  opinions  so  at  one  on  these 
Eastern  matters.  You  know  that  he  brought  back  a 
fever  from  Ararat.  He  says  Poti,  but  Ararat  sounds 
better.  Anyhow  he  is  getting  all  right  again  now,  and 
we  have  pretty  talks  on  politics  and  history. 

I  am  wonderfully  well  and  cheery  just  now  ;  and  so 
I  could  not  make  up  my  mind  to  run  off  to  the  Nile, 
and  leave  my  book  to  gaze  on  Khedives  and  hippo- 
potami. But  I  get  on  very  slowly.  I  have  done  all 
the  Godwine  and  Harold  part  ;  but  the  chapter  on 
the  Ethelred  time  was  so  bad — such  a  mere  string  of 
facts  and  battles — that  I  have  cancelled  it,  and  am  now 
musing  how  to  make  a  better  one.  I  quite  see  that 
from  Eadred's  day,  at  any  rate,  the  upgrowth  of  feudal- 
ism, and  its  fight  with  the  monarchy  which  has  just 
come  so  strong  and  great  out  of  the  war  with  the 
Danelagh,  is  the  true  keynote  of  our  history  :  I  see 
too,  that  while  oversea  feudalism  was  strong  enough  to 
get  its  own  way,  here  it  wasn't ;  and  that  it  was  the 
neutralization  of  both  forces,  monarchy  and  feudalism, 


442  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

by  their  almost  balanced  strife  which  left  England  open 
to  the  Swegen  and  Cnut  attack.  The  thing  is  getting 
clear  to  me,  but  I  shall  have  to  sit  and  moon  over  the 
fire  a  bit  more  on  these  winter  evenings  before  I  get  it 
quite  straight  and  to  my  liking.  After  that,  things  are 
pretty  manifest  :  though  I  hope  I  haven't  gone  too  far 
in  striving  to  bring  out  the  relation  of  England  to  the 
European  world  in  Godwine's  day.  The  more  and 
more  I  study  him,  the  greater  he  seems.  But  Harold! 
I  cannot  feel  any  interest  in  him ;  he  is  so  dull,  so 
exactly  the  glorified  image  of  the  respectable  grocer 
who  wishes  to  die  a  vestryman  !  By-the-bye,  imagine 
my  delight  on  finding  t'other  day  the  notes  of 
"  Senlac  "  I  made  on  the  ground  when  we  visited  Battle 
together  long  agone.  Likewise  I  have  routed  out  my 
notes  made  on  our  Norman  tour.  They  brought  back 
such  a  flood  of  pleasant  recollections. 

I  have  done  learning  to  speak  French,  being  able 
just  to  stammer  along,  and  shall  begin  German  in 
January,  cursing  much  the  people  who  would  build  the 
tower  of  Babel.  Then,  thank  God,  I  don't  see  that  I 
need  learn  one  language  more.  I  met  Sweet  t'other 
day,  and  talking  of  Dictionaries  he  said  the  only 
English  Dictionary  he  should  care  a  straw  for  would  be 
one  of  spoken,  not  written,  English.  He  seemed  to 
regard  literature  as  a  blot  and  excrescence  upon  language 
which  could  not  be  sufficiently  abhorred.  After  all, 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  his  talk.  So  he 
wants  children  taught  to  conjugate,  "  I'm  going,  you're 
going,  he's  going,"  and  "  I'll  go,  we'll  go,"  and  so  on, 
as  people  speak,  and  "  aint,"  "  aren't,"  "  shan't " 
adopted  as  grammatical  forms.  To  all  which  I  inclined 
mine  ear,  loving  much  the  confusion  of  schoolmasters 
and  grammatici. 

Good-bye  !  How's  Ruddy  Bill,1  the  real  old  English 
gentleman,  as  you  want  us  to  hold  him,  getting  on  ? 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

1  "William  Rufus  is  my  ideal  gentleman,"  Freeman  says  in  a  letter  to  Miss 
Thompson. — Life,  ii.  p.  80. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  443 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

25  CONNAUGHT  STREET, 
December  21,  1876. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  glad  Pauli  is  coming 
to  a  righter  mind.  Just  now  I  am  doing  William  and 
Harold — it  is  curious  in  reading  my  books  over  again 
to  see  how  little  time  and  fresh  knowledge  have  changed 
the  views  I  took  of  the  house  of  Godwine  ten  years  ago, 
as  I  find  them  written  in  my  notes  and  imagination. 
It  is  a  great  comfort  to  have  their  side  put  as  thoroughly 
as  it  ever  can  be  put  in  your  book  ;  I  feel  that  I  know 
now  all  that  can  be  said  against  the  views  I  hold,  and 
the  fact  that  reading  and  re-reading  what  you  say  I  still 
feel  their  case  to  be  so  weak  gives  me  some  sort  of 
hope  that  I  am  not  being  misled  by  mere  "fads"  and  one's 
natural  ingenuity.  It  certainly  does  seem  to  me  that 
the  success  of  William  was  due  mainly  to  the  long- 
nursed  ambition  of  Godwine  and  his  house.  But  though 
I  have  read  and  re-read  every  word  of  your  big  volumes 
and  am  ever  turning  back  to  them,  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  to  make  no  reference  to  you  in  any  points 
where  we  disagree,  but  only  where  we  agree.  I  will 
give  my  authorities,  but  I  will  take  my  chance  of 
people's  saying,  "  On  this  point  he  has  not  weighed 
what  Mr.  F.  has  said,"  rather  than  enter  into  controversy 
with  a  master  and  a  friend.  I  tell  you  this  that  when 
you  see  the  book  you  may  understand  why  I  speak  and 
why  I  don't  speak.  Generally  indeed  I  think  the  plan 
is  the  right  one  :  it  takes  away  from  one's  notes  that 
air  of  controversy  and  personal  conflict  which  is  so 
odious  in  itself  and  so  likely  to  hinder  the  just  con- 
sideration of  historical  facts.  I  used  to  be  eager  for 
fighting,  but  as  one  nears  forty  one  gets  peaceful,  and 
forty  is  only  twelve  months  off  from  me  now.  .  .  . 

A.  is  full  of  schemes  for  a  Liberal  paper  ;  but  I  take 
little  interest  in  it,  for  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Liberalism 
of  the  "Academical  Liberals"  is  but  half-an-inch  in  front 
of  that  of  the  Whigs,  and  that  of  the  Whigs  but  an 


444  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

eighth  of  an  inch  in  front  of  that  of  the  Tories,  and 
non  euro  de  minimis,  as  Lord  Eldon  used  to  say.  The 
only  questions  I  care  for  are  questions  fifty  years  ahead 
and  which  I  shall  never  live  to  see  even  discussed,  such 
as  the  entire  revolution  of  our  higher  education,  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  having  previously  been  ground  into 
powder  and  the  place  thereof  sown  with  salt  and  left  as 
a  place  for  dragons. 

My  own  Christmas  dinner  I  take  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life  with  my  family.  It  is  so  odd  to  think  of 
myself  as  an  uncle.  I  should  have  laughed  at  twenty 
if  one  had  told  me  that  forty  would  find  me  wifeless 
and  childless.  But  so  it  is,  and  I  shall  go  and  play 
"  Uncle  John "  at  Christmas  to  the  children  of  wiser 
and  happier  folk.  .  .  .  Fare  thee  well. — Affectionately 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

25  CONNAUGHT  STREET, 
February  1877. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN  —  Bismillah  !  you  are  a  great 
man  :  multitudes  rise  to  greet  thee  and  Ex-Premiers 
visit  thee !  Humphrey  Sand  with — whom  I  have  just  met 
all  brown  from  Servia — tells  me  he  is  coming  down  to 
you,  as  if  Somerleaze  were  now  the  Mecca  of  the  Eastern 
Question.  Ah  well !  let  the  sunshine  come  and  the 
summer-tide,  and  I  will  do  my  pilgrimage  to  Mecca ! 

But  it  is  not  of  the  Eastern  Question  I  want  to  write 
now,  but  of  another.  I  have  induced  Macmillan  to 
follow  up  my  Short  History  with  a  series  of  like  books 
— like,  I  mean,  in  form  and  extent  ;  and  I  am  pressing 
Bryce  to  do  a  Short  History  of  Rome.  You  I  want  to 
press  for  a  Short  History  of  the  Greek  Folk.  You 
sketched  for  me  one  day  your  notion  of  what  such  a 
book  should  be — the  story  of  Hellas  the  Sporadic  in 
all  its  geographical  and  temporal  extension — and  it  has 
been  haunting  me  ever  since.  I  am  sure  we  should 
both  die  the  happier  were  it  done.  ...  I  have  no 
doubt  such  a  book  would  beat  the  Smiths  and  the 


iv  LAST  YEARS  445 

Schmitzes  out  of  the  field,  and  yield  you  a  good  annual 
return.  Moreover  it  would  do  more  to  get  right 
notions  into  the  heads  of  the  Many-Folk,  of  Herr 
Omnes,  than  a  thousand  Grotes.  Moreover  it  would 
put  Greek  History  for  the  first  time  on  a  right  basis, 
and  we  should  die  with  the  thought  that  something  had 
been  done  for  Hellas !  .  .  . — Ever  yours,  dear  F., 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Stafford 

February  2,  1877. 

I  am  still  working  fast  and  well,  having  at  last 
started  fairly  on  the  beginning  of  my  three  volumes 
after  dabbling  in  them  at  every  other  point  than  the 
beginning.  I  feel  now  the  enormous  difference  in  point 
of  literary  power — power  I  mean  especially  of  handling 
my  materials — between  now  and  the  day  when  I  wrote 
my  Short  History.  I  had  written  heaps  of  things  before, 
of  course,  essays  and  papers  and  the  like ;  but  between 
these  and  the  writing  a  book  there  is  a  great  gulf,  and 
in  some  ways  the  very  excellences  I  had  fancied  in 
writing  these  small  things  stood  in  my  way  when  setting 
to  the  larger  task.  All  through  the  earlier  part  of 
"Shorts"  I  see  the  indelible  mark  of  the  essayist,  the 
"  want  of  long  breath,"  as  the  French  say,  the  tendency 
to  "little  vignettes,"  the  jerkiness,  the  slurring  over 
the  uninteresting  parts,  above  all  the  want  of  grasp  of 
the  subject  as  a  whole.  I  learnt  my  trade  as  I  wrote 
on  ;  a  different  sort  of  work  begins  with  Edward  I.  : 
but  it  is  not  till  I  reach  the  New  Learning  that  I  feel  a 
freedom  from  that  fatal  "  essay  ism."  I  think  that  my 
new  book  will  be  pretty  free  from  it  throughout — at 
least  I  am  striving  to  make  it  free — the  only  dread  is 
lest  in  my  sternness  of  resolve  I  make  it  dry  and  dull ; 
(certainly,  as  far  as  work  goes,  it  will  be  a  far  more 
thorough  book  than  "Shorts"). 

You  see  I  should  make  a  harsher  critic  of  my  own 
work  than  any  of  my  reviewers.  I  hope  I  always  shall. 
But  I  love  it  too,  though  I  see  its  faults. 


446  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

February  zi,  1877. 

Last  night  I  met  Gladstone — it  will  always  be  a 
memorable  night  to  me ;  Stubbs  was  there,  and  Goldwin 
Smith  and  Humphrey  Sandwith  and  Mackenzie  Wallace 
whose  great  book  on  Russia  is  making  such  a  stir, 
besides  a  few  other  nice  people  ;  but  one  forgets  every- 
thing in  Gladstone  himself,  in  his  perfect  naturalness 
and  grace  of  manner,  his  charming  abandon  of  con- 
versation, his  unaffected  modesty,  his  warm  ardour  for 
all  that  is  noble  and  good.  I  felt  so  proud  of  my 
leader — the  chief  I  have  always  clung  to  through  good 
report  and  ill  report — because,  wise  or  unwise  as  he 
might  seem  in  this  or  that,  he  was  always  noble  of 
soul.  He  was  very  pleasant  to  me,  and  talked  of  the 
new  historic  school  he  hoped  we  were  building  up  as 
enlisting  his  warmest  sympathy.  I  wish  you  could 
have  seen  with  what  a  glow  he  spoke  of  the  Montene- 
grins and  their  struggle  for  freedom  ;  how  he  called  on 
us  who  wrote  history  to  write  what  we  could  of  that 
long  fight  for  liberty  !  And  all  through  the  evening 
not  a  word  to  recall  his  greatness  amongst  us,  simple, 
natural,  an  equal  among  his  equals,  listening  to  every 
one,  drawing  out  every  one,  with  a  force  and  a  modesty 
that  touched  us  more  than  all  his  power. 

February  22,  1877. 

To-night  I  am  dining  at  Dean  Stanley's — which  is  a 
joke.  I  used  to  go  there  often,  but  after  my 
review  of  his  Westminster  Abbey  in  the  S.  R.  Lady 
Augusta  avenged  herself  by  not  dining  me,  and 
this  is  a  sort  of  reconciliation  dinner,  I  suppose— 
though  as  a  matter  of  fact  Stanley  and  I  have  always 
been  on  very  good  terms.  If  it  were  not  for  this  I 
should  not  go  out  to-night,  for  I  feel  a  little  monition 
of  cold,  and  somehow  I  feel  tired  still. 

February  23,  1877. 

I  see  the  danger  of  movement,  but  I  see  no  chance 
of  the  possibility  of  finally  standing  still ;  and  as  that 


iv  LAST  YEARS  447 

is  so,  I  begin  to  see  that  there  may  be  a  truer  wisdom 
in  the  "  humanitarianism "  of  Gladstone  than  in  the 
purely  political  views  of  Disraeli.  The  sympathies  of 
peoples  with  peoples,  the  sense  of  a  common  humanity 
between  nations,  the  aspirations  of  nationalities  after 
freedom  and  independence,  are  real  political  forces  ; 
and  it  is  just  because  Gladstone  owns  them  as  forces, 
and  Disraeli  disowns  them  that  the  one  has  been  on 
the  right  side,  and  the  other  on  the  wrong  in  parallel 
questions  such  as  the  upbuilding  of  Germany  or  Italy. 
I  think  it  will  be  so  in  this  upbuilding  of  the  Sclave. 

February  25. — I  shall  do  far  better  work  than 
Little  Book  before  I  die  ;  but  there  is  a  fire,  an 
enthusiasm  in  one's  first  book  that  never  comes  again. 
I  felt  as  if  I  were  some  young  knight  challenging  the 
world  with  my  new  method,  and  something  of  the 
trumpet  ring  is  in  passage  after  passage.  But  it  is  full 
of  faults,  unequal,  careless,  freakish,  with  audacity  often 
instead  of  a  calm  power,  only  rising  when  the  subject 
caught  me,  and  hurrying  over  topics  I  didn't  fancy. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  me  in  it,  but  I  shall  have  a 
nobler,  a  juster,  a  calmer  me  to  reflect  in  other  books. 


To  Mrs.  Creighton 

RICHMOND  HOUSE,  CHESTER, 
March  4,  1877. 

Yes,  dear  Louise,  I  am  going  to  be  married,  but  I 
am  not  going  to  carry  out  any  foolish  statements  I  have 
made  about  "  absorption  "  or  friend-forgetting.  So  far 
from  it  that  I  was  planning  with  Alice  only  this  morning  a 
wild  wandering  after  our  marriage  in  June,  which  took 
us  through  Westmoreland  Lakes  and  Scotch  Lakes 
round  to  the  Border  country,  and  dropped  us  for  our 
first  visit  as  wedded  folk  in  Embleton  Vicarage  !  I  do 
intend,  however,  after  this  and  a  few  other  "  episodes  " 
to  find  my  way  over  the  water,  and  to  move  slowly  to 
winter  quarters  at  Rome. 


448  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

Your  mention  of  the  old  days  at  Peak  Hill  brings 
them  back  to  me  with  a  strange  vividness  !  What  an 
odd  circle  it  was  of  men  with  how  different  destinies  ! 
Well,  that  memory  of  the  earnest,  resolute  girl  who 
came  into  the  midst  of  it  with  her  love  of  knowledge 
and  love  of  right,  "  young "  certainly  but  not  "  very 
foolish,"  because  there  is  no  wiser  thing  in  the  world 
than  the  love  of  those  two  things,  that  memory  is  one 
of  the  pleasantest  of  all  that  time,  as  it  is  assuredly  one 
of  the  best.  It  was  a  great  crisis  in  my  life,  Louise, 
though  none  of  you  then  knew  it ;  I  stood  on  the 
very  brink  of  a  moral  wreck ;  and  if  I  was  saved, 
perhaps  the  steady  right-mindedness  of  a  certain  Louise 
von  Glehn,  moving  amidst  that  sceptical  self-indulgent 
circle,  with  her  resolute  spirit  of  love  and  duty,  had 
more  to  do  with  it  than  she  knew.  .  .  . — Yours  ever, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Kate  Norgate 

.CHESTER,  March  5,  1877. 

.  .  .  It  is  only  by  seeing  things  ourselves  that  we  can 
make  others  see  them.  When  criticism  has  done  its 
work  comes  the  office  of  the  imagination,  and  we  dwell 
upon  these  names  till  they  become  real  to  us,  real  places, 
real  battles,  real  men  and  women — and  it  is  only  when 
this  reality  has  struck  in  upon  us  and  we  "  see  "  that 
we  can  so  describe,  so  represent  that  others  see  too. 

Let  your  own  instinct  guide  you  in  this.  There  are 
certain  figures,  certain  events,  figures  like  that  of  Fulk 
the  Black  for  instance,  events  like  the  marriage  of 
Geoffrey  and  Maud,  that  either  in  their  natural 
picturesqueness  or  their  immense  results  strike  the 
imagination  at  once  and  raise  it  to  their  realization. 
Take  such  points  as  they  come  home  to  you,  let  your 
mind  play  on  them,  write  when  you  feel  they  are  real 
and  life-like  to  you,  do  not  be  afraid  of  exaggeration 
or  over-rhetoric  (that  is  easily  got  rid  of  later  on), 
but  just  strive  after  realization  and  you  will  write 


iv  LAST  YEARS 


449 


history.  The  other  and  dimmer  facts  will  take  light 
and  form  from  the  portions  that  have  started  into  life. 
My  own  advice  to  you  is  "  Go  on."  Your  work  is 
good,  and  you  will  do  better  as  you  work  on. — Yours 
faithfully,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Stafford 

25   CoNNAUGHT  STREET, 

March  19,  1877. 

This  "  revision "  and  "  cutting  down "  is  weary 
work  ;  I  long  for  it  to  be  over,  and  to  feel  myself 
free  again  to  find  out  and  tell  new  things.  I  don't 
think  I  could  do  it,  but  for  the  thought  I  am  working 
for  you,  working  to  secure  you  from  anxiety  about 
income  whatever  happens  to  me. 

March  20,  1877. 

Shall  you  think  me  "  cracked  "  if  I  talk  again  of 
my  Primers  ?  They  are  so  much  on  my  mind  that  I 
cannot  help  talking  of  them.  I  find  by  a  report  I 
drew  up  for  Macmillan  that  I  have  brought  out  nine, 
which  are  selling  about  100,000  copies  a  year  ;  and 
that  I  have  three  more  in  the  press  —  Miss  Yonge's 
France,  Dowden's  Shakespeare^  and  Wilkins's  Roman 
Antiquities ;  and  that  eight  more  are  promised,  includ- 
ing Primers  from  Professors  Nichol,  Jebb,  Seeley, 
Max  Miiller,  from  Grove,  Brooke,  Furnivall,  and 
J.  R.  G.  I  felt  a  little  proud  to  have  organized  and 
carried  out  such  a  scheme  in  three  years  or  so  ;  and  to 
have  besides  projects  in  my  head  for  at  least  twenty 
more  little  books  in  the  same  series.  When  I  gave 
up  my  clerical  work  I  felt  a  little  sad  that  I  should 
find  no  more  sphere  for  a  power  of  organization 
which  I  had  discovered  in  myself  while  busied  with 
the  large  parishes  I  had  to  take  in  hand  ;  but  life  has 
its  resources,  and  in  organising  a  series  like  this  on 
principles  which  must  influence  the  whole  course  of 
schoolbooks,  and  so  of  education  after  I  am  gone,  I 

2  G 


450  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

don't  think  I  have  done  much  worse  than  at  Stepney 
or  Hoxton. 

There  is  a  choice  lot  of  vanity !  I  am  too  proud 
to  be  vain  as  a  rule,  you  see,  but  we  must  have  a 
little  flutter,  and  cock-crow  now  and  then. 


March  24,  '77. 

...  I  had  a  pleasant  morning  at  Roundell's  house,  for 
he  had  invited  a  dozen  of  our  head-mistresses  to  a  sort  of 
conference  with  one  or  two  of  the  Council,  and  nothing 
could  have  been  more  interesting  or  instructive.  I 
rather  grudged  giving  up  my  history  morning  for  it, 
but  I  should  have  been  sorry  to  miss  it.  I  was  struck 
with  the  practical  and  governmental  sense  of  the 
mistresses  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  I  saw  how  needful 
was  a  general  Council  such  as  ours  which  could  look  at 
every  detail  in  the  broad  light  of  its  bearing  on  educa- 
tion itself.  .  .  . 

Remember  my  theory  of  life  is  no  mere  indolence 
theory.  I  have  worked  hard  and  mean  to  work  hard 
on  things  which  have  a  worthy  end  and  use.  What  I 
protest  against  is  mere  asceticism,  a  blindness  to  what  is 
really  beautiful  and  pleasurable  in  life,  a  preference  for 
the  disagreeable  as  if  it  were  in  itself  better  than  the 
agreeable,  above  all  a  parting  of  life  into  this  element 
and  that,  and  a  contempt  of  half  the  life  we  have  to  live 
as  if  it  were  something  which  hindered  us  from  living 
the  other  half.  Mind  and  soul  and  body — I  would 
have  all  harmoniously  develope  together — neither  in- 
tellectualism  nor  spiritualism,  nor  sensualism,  but  a 
broad  humanity. 

March  26,  1877  ? 

...  I  told  him  of  Lord  Houghton  chatting  with 
Louis  Philippe  after  1848,  and  the  ex-king  telling  him 
how  when  he  was  a  boy  his  tutor  stopped  him  in  the  street 
one  day,  and  pointed  to  a  slouching  ill-dressed  figure 


iv  LAST  YEARS  451 

who  shuffled  along  clinging  to  the  wall  as  he  went. 
"  Some  day,"  said  the  tutor,  "  you  will  be  glad  to  have 
seen  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau."  At  another  time  his 
tutoress,  Madame  de  Genlis,  took  him  into  a  circle  of 
princes  gathered  round  a  very  old  man,  with  strange 
old-fashioned  clothes  and  brilliant  eyes.  "Ah,  you 
here,  M.  le  Due,"  said  the  old  man  with  surprise,  "  you 
among  all  this  Bourbonaille  !  "  It  was  Voltaire. 

I  had  a  man  at  breakfast  this  morning  who  would 
have  interested  you,  Norman  Moore,  one  of  the  surgeons 
at  St.  Bartholomew's,  but  a  man  of  marvellous  know- 
ledge in  all  Irish  matters  old  and  new.  He  came  to 
talk  over  the  translation  of  an  old  Irish  manuscript  he 
is  making  ;  but  gradually  our  talk  turned  on  modern 
Ireland,  and  as  usual  I  learned  a  great  deal.  Indeed 
he  is  the  only  Irish  person  from  whom  I  ever  learned 
anything  about  Ireland.  Most  Irish  people  shake  their 
heads  and  tell  me,  "  Oh,  you  English  can  never  under- 
stand Ireland,"  but  whenever  I  question  them  I  never 
find  they  understand  or  even  try  to  understand  them- 
selves. The  Irish  Protestants,  the  gentry,  live  in 
their  own  world,  and  clearly  know  as  little  as  we 
folk  do  of  the  Irish  Catholic  world  without  them, 
that  is,  in  effect,  of  the  Irish  People.  Now  Moore 
through  his  ardent  "  nationalism,"  and  above  all  his 
knowledge  of  Irish  and  Irish  history  cares  only  for  the 
Irish  People,  and  looks  upon  the  Protestants  and 
"  Englishry,"  as  Swift  called  them,  as  mere  intruders 
who  must  at  last  be  got  out  of  the  land.  He  showed 
me  in  how  many  ways  their  extrusion  is  even  now 
going  on.  For  instance  I  asked  him  the  explanation 
of  the  diminution  of  the  Protestant  population  in 
places  like  Kells.  Your  mother  told  me  it  sank  in 
her  time  from  a  thousand  to  two  hundred,  but  her 
reasons  for  it  were  not  very  enlightening.  Moore  at- 
tributes it  to  Catholic  Emancipation.  Before  that  time 
all  trades  and  industries  were  practically  in  the  hands 
of  town  guilds,  and  these  were  Protestant ;  hence  Pro- 


452  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

testants  concentrated  themselves  in  the  towns,  whose 
commerce  lay  in  their  hands.  When  Catholic  dis- 
abilities were  repealed  and  trades  and  shops  were  left 
open  to  Catholics,  the  Catholic  farmers  of  the  county 
round  preferred  to  deal  with  their  own  fellow  re- 
ligionists, and  so  gradually  trade  has  passed  out  of  Pro- 
testant hands,  and  the  Protestants  have  emigrated  to 
America  and  England.  With  this  change  and  the 
growth  of  a  Catholic  commercial  middle  class,  who 
will  spend  their  savings  in  land-buying,  the  land  itself 
will  gradually  pass  into  purely  Irish  hands,  a  process 
which  has  been  going  on  steadily  for  the  last  thirty 
years.  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  this  process  of 
breaking  up  the  Protestant  commercial  hold  on 
Ireland  began  with  the  prohibition  of  the  woollen 
manufacture  by  the  English  Parliament  under  William 
III.  I  want  Moore  to  write  the  History  of  this 
silent  revolution  and  displacement  of  Protestant  by 
Catholic  Ireland. 


March  27,  1877. 

It  was  simply  one  of  those  sudden  breakdowns  that 
I  fear  I  must  always  remain  subject  to,  and  which 
show  that  mischief  is  there;  but  it  is  strange  how 
in  a  single  night  all  strength  seems  to  ebb  out  of  me 
and  to  leave  me  next  morning  helpless  and  feverish 
on  a  sofa.  .  .  . 

Yesterday  gave  me  nothing  to  talk  about,  for  it  was 
a  mere  blank  day  of  weakness  and  gloom  and  sofa.  .  .  . 
I  suppose  everybody  at  Chester  is  in  raptures  at  Lord 
Derby's  "  firmness."  For  myself  I  am  driven  to  say 
much  what  I  said  to  a  man  at  the  Club  the  other  day 
when  he  asked  a  little  roughly,  "  But  what  are  your 
Eastern  politics  ? "  to  which  I  answered,  "  At  present, 
mainly  Russian."  Another  month  will  clear  away  this 
mist  of  negotiations,  and  at  the  first  shot  across  the 
Pruth  men  will  rub  their  eyes  and  remark  whether 
Lord  Derby  was  such  a  very  wise  man  after  all. 


iv  LAST  YEARS 


453 


March  30,  1877. 

Practically  it  is  impossible — without  giving  serious 
offence  to  people  I  care  for  —  to  wholly  refuse  all 
invitations  ;  but  I  have  accepted  few,  and  have  been 
careful  whenever  I  have  done  so.  It  is  true  that  my 
work  has  been  hard  and  extra  business  rather  op- 
pressive ;  but  this  cannot  be  helped  at  times,  whatever 
one  may  wish.  You  must  not  picture  me  as  living  in 
a  round  of  pleasures  ;  my  common  life  is  very  quiet. 
For  instance,  the  "  wild  revel "  I  laughed  about  last 
was  only  a  couple  of  friends  dining  with  me  at  my 
rooms  in  the  soberest  way.  It  is  true  I  followed  this 
up  with  one  of  my  "  breakdowns,"  but  I  fear  that 
whatever  care  one  takes  these  must  come  at  times 
while  my  chest  remains  treacherous  ...  a  man  gets 
very  patient  with  these  little  ups  and  downs  when  he 
can  look  back,  as  I  look  back,  for  eight  long  years 
before  he  sees  in  the  past  a  day  of  health.  .  .  . 

It  is  a  curious  instance  of  my  elasticity  of  tempera- 
ment that  what  has  done  me  most  good  is  really  a 
serious  trouble  which  came  to  me  yesterday.  I  always 
think  a  real  difficulty  freshens  and  braces  one  up. 
And  this  is  a  real  difficulty.  The  Harpers  (my 
publishing  house  in  America)  have  offered  me,  as  I 
told  you,  a  percentage  on  the  sale  of  the  revised  edition 
of  Short  History  in  both  its  one-volume  and  three- 
volume  form,  and  this  I  accepted,  Macmillan  arranging 
to  forward  them  the  stereotype  plates  as  they  are  set 
up  in  the  usual  way.  They  have  waited  patiently, 
but  now  they  write  that  the  revised  edition  must  be 
ready  in  September — which  is  their  publishing  season. 
In  a  business  point  of  view  they  have  a  right  to  insist 
on  this,  as  my  delay  has  been  excessive,  and  if  I  refuse 
I  fear  their  offer  of  a  percentage  may  be  withdrawn, 
which  would  be  a  serious  matter  to  our  income. 
Macmillan  too,  as  the  matter  is  raised,  urges  that  in 
fairness  to  his  own  house  the  new  edition  should  be 
brought  out  this  year,  and  this  he  has  a  perfect  right 


454  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

to  urge  after  waiting  so  long.  But  to  do  this — even 
if  it  can  be  done — I  should  need  every  day  till  the 
end  of  August,  for  to  get  the  work  done  by  the  i5th 
of  June  is  simply  impossible.  .  .  .  This  must  be  hard 
work,  and  hurried,  disagreeable  work.  .  .  . 

[After  discussing  the  very  serious  difficulties  at  this 
moment  he  goes  on.] 

I  own  to  having  been  annoyed  last  night  by  the 
news  beyond  measure,  but  this  morning  I  found  that 
"  dogged  does  it "  had  got  into  my  blood,  and  I 
knuckled  to  at  my  work  with  a  resolve  to  get  it  done, 
sent  a  lot  off  to  print  at  once,  and  did  a  lot  more 
before  luncheon  came.  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  we 
should  find  some  difficulties  throw  themselves  in  our 
way.  Practically  too,  no  doubt,  /  ought  to  finish  the 
revised  edition  before  marriage,  as  it  is  this  which 
would  be  of  real  value  in  the  settlement  I  make  to 
you.1 

March  31,  1877. 

My  brusque  announcement  of  the  all  but  impossi- 
bility of  getting  away  with  this  new  press  of  work 
about  me  may  have  been  too  short.  It  was  just 
because  the  disappointment  was  so  great  that  I  did 
not  dwell  on  it  —  I  felt  it  must  be,  and  hurried  from 
the  subject. 

I  have  just  finished  a  chapter  on  "  Angevin 
England  "  which  is  to  begin  Book  III.,  and  go  on  after 
tea  with  "  John."  But  looking  over  my  proofs  last 
night  I  found  my  hopes  had  run  ahead  of  facts,  and 
that  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  done  even  to  these. 
Still  it  is  a  very  different  thing  from  working  entirely 
de  novo.  I  think  I  am  doing  well,  but  I  feel  more 
dogged  than  interested  in  this  work.  It  will  be  a 
great  relief  when  it  is  done,  and  I  shall  enjoy  my 
holiday !  Do  you  know  I  have  not  taken  one  for 
three  years ! 

1  As  will  be  seen  this  revision  of  the  Short  History  in  one  volume,  which  he 
began,  proved  beyond  his  strength,  and  had  to  be  abandoned. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  455 


April  i. 

A  quiet  Easter -day  ;  rain  without,  within  steady 
work  at  my  revision,  which  I  have  brought  up  this 
morning  to  Henry  II.  It  is  pleasant  to  feel  myself 
going  on  at  last — forced  by  sheer  pressure  of  printers 
to  give  up  the  pleasant  liberty  of  wandering  off  into 
new  fields  of  inquiry  as  they  tempt  one  to  left  and 
right,  and  driven  to  go  straight  on.  As  yet  I  am 
getting  along  wonderfully  on  this  new  system,  and 
making  a  great  hole  in  the  work  to  be  done.  When 
April  ends  I  shall  know  pretty  fairly  what  prospect 
really  lies  before  me  ;  as  yet  I  only  see  that  now 
that  I  am  practically  at  work  I  work  faster  than 
I  had  feared,  and  then  the  work  I  do  is  a  great 
improvement  on  my  former  work.  I  am  not  so 
haunted  as  I  was  by  the  fear  of  "  spoiling  "  my  book. 
I  felt  that  spoil  or  not  spoil  I  had  to  rewrite  it — that 
was  a  question  for  my  historical  conscience — but  some- 
times the  dread  of  a  fiasco  made  obedience  to  conscience 
harder  than  one  could  fancy. 

I  am  fairly  well  again,  and  my  nights  are  sound  and 
refreshing,  the  feverish  feeling  has  passed  away.  It  is 
curious  how  steady  work  steadies  one's  physical  system 
as  well  as  one's  moral.  I  feel  too  already  the  revival 
that  always  comes  to  me  with  the  breath  of  spring.  It 
is  such  a  joy  to  see  the  trees  all  breaking  into  green 
again — you  know  my  view  at  the  back,  well  it  is 
getting  quite  gardenish  and  rural,  there  is  a  cherry- 
tree  close  by  me  that  gladdens  me  every  morning  as  I 
go  out  to  look  at  it.  Whatever  comes  to  us  we  will 
never  take  a  house  where  we  can't  get  some  peep  or 
other  of  a  tree  !  .  .  . 

I  came  to-day,  among  my  old  papers,  on  a  dirty 
notebook  with  all  my  notes  of  the  reading  I  did  for  a 
Life  of  Patrick  fifteen  years  ago.  It  brought  back 
such  a  flood  of  memories.  I  had  come  to  London 
full  of  hopes  and  ideals  only  to  see  them  foiled,  and 
myself  utterly  alone  and  without  a  friend  in  all  this 


456  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

Babylon,  and  then  came  darkness  and  misery  till  I 
roused  myself  and  fled  to  the  British  Museum  and 
steadied  myself  by  working  morning  after  morning  in 
its  library  at  Colgan  and  Lanigan  and  all  sorts  of  dull 
folk  in  the  aim  of  digging  up  Patrick.  After  a  year's 
work  I  saw  that  to  do  it  as  it  ought  to  be  done  I  should 
know  Irish,  so  I  gave  it  up,  but  I  had  learned  a  good 
deal,  and  had  got  fairly  into  my  historical  reading 
again,  which  I  had  given  up  in  the  fit  of  religious 
enthusiasm  which  led  me  to  take  orders,  and  from 
that  moment  I  never  gave  it  up  again.  Putting 
Ireland  aside  I  bought  B<eda  and  the  Chronicle^  and 
for  the  next  ten  years  read  steadily  at  the  materials  for 
English  History.  Thence  came  Little  Book.  It  was 
a  strange  life,  half  with  Patrick  and  the  great  Library, 
half  in  the  wretched  purlieus  of  Clerkenwell  and  S. 
Luke's  ;  but  I  felt  all  through  that  each  half  helped 
the  other — and  so  it  has  turned  out. 

April  4,  1877. 

I  had  so  counted  on  the  happy  days  after  our 
marriage,  that  when  I  found  myself  baffled  in  this  hope 
I  felt  the  old  feeling  of  the  disappointment  of  life 
waking  up  again,  and  carrying  me  back  into  the  old 
grey  dead  hopelessness  which  has  vanished  of  late. 
And  with  this  came  the  physical  and  mental  weariness 
rising  out  of  the  new  stress  of  work  ;  and  above  all 
of  uninteresting  work,  for  I  saw  that  unless  I  was  to 
keep  neck  and  neck  with  the  printers,  which  would 
be  a  daily  pressure,  I  must  make  a  great  fight  these 
early  days  to  get  fairly  ahead,  and  this  I  have  done, 
but  only  at  the  cost  of  long  grind  every  day. 

April  ^  1877. 

Things  look  far  brighter  to  me  this  morning  than 
they  looked  a  day  or  two  ago.  That  sudden  overthrow 
of  all  my  plans  hit  me  harder  than  I  cared  to  say.  I 
braced  myself  to  bear  and  to  work,  but  I  felt  it  keenly 


iv  LAST  YEARS  457 

and  every  nerve  shivered  and  tingled  for  days.  I  was 
irritable,  for  my  nights  were  wretched  which  always 
brings  gloomy  days  ;  and  my  temper  was  none  the 
better  for  the  hard  work  I  set  myself  to  do,  indeed  the 
overwork.  However  it  is  over  now.  Yesterday  I 
finished  to  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  "  Foreign  Kings," 
and  was  looking  drearily  ahead  when  Miss  R.  quietly 
fetched  down  a  whole  bundle  of  proofs,  proofs  set  up 
a  year  ago  and  which  I  had  wholly  forgotten,  which 
carried  the  book  on  to  the  battle  of  Crecy  !  Imagine 
my  relief,  my  change  of  "  mood  "  !  I  looked  them 
through  ;  saw  there  was  very  little  to  do  to  them,  that 
they  were  nearly  ready  for  press,  and  went  straight  off 
to  bed  to  sleep  soundly  and  rise  a  fresh  creature  this 
morning.  Things  look  less  blue  and  I  shall  go  in  for 
a  lighter  heart  and  a  better  temper  ! 

April 6,  1877. 

I  did  well  this  morning  with  my  work — I  have  now 
sent  to  press  up  to  p.  100  in  my  present  Short  History, 
i.e.  about  a  ninth  of  the  new  edition ;  and  if  I  can  get  on 
as  I  am  doing  now  I  shall  look  more  hopefully  at  my 
work  and  its  prospects  at  the  end  of  April  than  I  do 
at  the  end  of  March.  After  all  compulsion  has  its 
uses  ;  I  strive  so  after  an  impossible  perfection  that  I 
should  never  finish  anything  if  "must"  didn't  suddenly 
come  in  this  way  from  some  quarter  or  other.  It  was 
so  with  "  Shorts  "  itself.  I  had  to  huddle  up  the  end 
of  it  at  last  and  get  the  book  out  because  Macmillan's 
patience  fairly  broke  down.  This  time  I  will  try  not 
to  "  huddle  up "  anything  ;  but  I  daresay  something 
will  look  hurried  and  imperfect. 

May  5,  1877. 

Imagine  my  having  to  figure  in  a  police-court  this 
morning !  Last  night  as  I  left  Stopford  Brooke  I 
found  a  cabman  lashing  his  horse  brutally,  and  after 
much  trouble  in  following  him  found  a  policeman  and 
gave  him  in  charge.  So  to-day  I  had  to  "  kiss  the 


458  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

book  "  and  give  my  evidence,  and  cabby  was  fined  fifty 
shillings  or  prison  for  a  month.  It  was  worth  while  wait- 
ing in  the  Court  to  see  all  the  seamy  side  of  London 
life,  its  dull  vulgar  vice — the  bored  magistrate  :  "  was 
he  on  the  drink  ?  "  coming  in  as  a  refrain.  .  .  . 

As  soon  as  vol.  i.  is  fairly  off  my  hands  I  shall 
plunge  into  the  half  of  vol.  ii.  which  remains  to  be 
done,  so  that  we  may  get  both  out  before  we  go  over 
sea.  Macmillan  looks  blue  about  my  doing  this  more 
extended  work  before  the  revision  of  "  Shorts,"  and 
says,  what  is  true,  that  the  last  would  be  far  more 
profitable  to  me  in  a  money  point  of  view,  and  that 
I  shall  want  money  now.  Well,  you  and  I  will  know 
how  to  be  poor,  if  need  be.  I  know  that  what  I  am 
doing  is  the  righter  thing,  and  that  the  "revision"  of 
Shorts  will  be  far  more  thorough  and  efficient  if  I 
defer  it  till  my  larger  work  is  worked  through  and 
done.  If  so  doing  means  not  taking  a  London  house 
just  yet,  we  will  wait  for  our  London  house. 

May  6,  1877. 

["Hobart  Pasha"  (Augustus  Charles  Hobart- 
Hampden,  1822-1886)  described  as  an  Elizabethan 
buccaneer  born  in  modern  England,  was  an  admiral  in 
the  Turkish  service  during  the  war  of  1877  ;  and  his 
name  was  for  a  time  struck  off  the  Navy  List  for  com- 
manding against  a  friendly  Power.  Freeman,  in  a  letter 
of  March  1877,  says  that  he  would  rather  not  go  to 
Greece  "  if  Hobart  should  be  bombarding  or  even 
blockading  Peirseus,  as  the  scoundrel  may  be  doing  "  ; 
but  I  know  nothing  more  of  the  challenge.  Freeman's 
book  was  called  The  Turks  in  Europe.] 

I  mastered  my  shyness  to-day  and  "vested"  myself,  as 
the  Ritualists  say,  in  your  watch  chain  by  way  of  loyalty 
to  the  giver.  Some  day  I  shall  cajole  you  into  giving 
me  a  seal  ring  :  indeed  all  through  my  life  I  shall  be 
tricking  you  into  a  host  of  little  presents, — studs,  eye- 
glasses, and  all  sorts  of  "  bijouteries."  I  have  always 


iv  LAST  YEARS  459 

set  my  face  against  gifts,  and  with  such  success  that 
nobody  has  ever  given  me  anything,  not  even  a  pair  of 
slippers — but  now  I  am  like  Danae — I  want  you  to 
pour  over  me  in  a  shower  of  pretty  presents.  .  . 

George  Howard  wants  me  to  speak  at  to-morrow's 
meeting  at  St.  James's  Hall,  but  I  have  resolved  to 
decline.  Liberal  folk  are  much  troubled  just  now. 
Grant  Duff  was  wild  yesterday  against  Gladstone,  "  an 
hysterical  old  woman  with  the  power  of  words  !  "  as  he 
irreverently  called  him,  and  even  Lord  Aberdare,  the 
most  good-humoured  of  men,  fairly  lost  his  temper  in 
talking  to  me  about  the  "  certain  ruin  of  the  Liberal 
party."  For  my  own  part  I  think  ruin  is  just  what  the 
Liberal  party  wants  ;  and  if  all  this  row  ends  in  the 
formation  of  a  new  Liberal  party — even  if  it  numbers 
only  eighty  members — -with  Gladstone  fairly  at  its  head, 
I  shall  see  light  and  hope.  But  I  am  pretty  well  alone 
in  my  hopefulness.  Bryce  and  Lecky  mourned  to  me 
yesterday  like  sucking  doves. 

Freeman  has  bequeathed  to  his  country  as  he  fled 
from  her  shores  a  book  on  the  Ottoman  Turks  which 
makes  a  fearful  Bulgarian  Massacre  of  my  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  my  Lord  Derby,  and  Hobart  Pasha.  It  is  the 
most  rattling  bit  of  invective  I  have  read  for  a  good 
while.  Did  I  tell  you  that  an  old  admiral,  a  friend  of 
Hobart's,  challenged  Freeman  to  single  combat  on  the 
sands  of  Boulogne  by  way  of  avenging  the  Pasha's 
wrongs  ?  If  Hobart  resigns  his  Turkish  commission 
and  comes  home,  I  shall  expect  to  hear  of  murder  done 
at  Somerleaze  ! 

May  7,  1877. 

I  am  working,  but  even  here  fate  is  cross.  I  had 
my  brain  all  aglow  with  the  thought  of  "  doing "  a 
great  picture  of  tenth-century  London  this  morning, 
when  in  came  Macmillan  and  pressed  me  with  all  his 
cool  Scotch  sense  to  go  on  with  my  "revision"  of  Shorts 
— the  "galley-slave  work,"  as  I  called  it  in  my  wrath. 
He  vanished,  scared,  but  wrath  settled  down  after  this 


460  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

outburst ;  and  I  just  gave  a  great  gulp  and  put  away 
my  dear  London  notes  and  screwed  myself  down  to 
"  revision  "  and  worked  at  it  all  the  morning.  A  year 
ago  I  would  have  seen  "  common  sense "  at  Halifax 
before  I  gave  up  any  project  I  was  hot  upon  ;  but  now 
after  an  indignant  growl  at  Macmillan's  talk  about 
money  I  thought,  "Well  —  but  for  A.'s  sake,"  and 
screwed  myself  down  to  "  do  the  disagreeable."  So  I 
worked  for  you  ;  and  bit  by  bit  things  got  brighter 
and  the  yoke  pressed  more  lightly,  and  I  began  to  feel 
that  duty  has  its  sweetness  after  all.  .  . 

I  called  at  the  Howards'  yesterday.  In  came  Burne 
Jones,  half  distraught  with  the  red  hangings  behind  his 
pictures  at  the  New  Gallery.  He  wont  go  there — "  it 
is  the  last  blow,"  he  says,  "  and  it  comes  from  a  friend." 
He  was  very  desperate  and  very  amusing ;  while  Mr. 
Howard  talked  politics  and  told  me  the  passage  at  the 
close  of  Carlyle's  letter  meant  a  plan  of  Lord  Beacons- 
field  for  at  once  occupying  Constantinople!  I  am 
afraid  we  are  drifting  into  war — into  war  on  the  side 
of  the  Devil  and  in  the  cause  of  Hell.  It  will  be  so 
terrible  to  have  to  wish  England  beaten.  People  are 
all  shy  now  of  saying  in  the  old-fashioned  way  that 
they  love  their  country.  Well  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
say  it.  I  love  England  dearly.  But  I  love  her  too 
well  to  wish  her  triumphant  if  she  fight  against  human 
right  and  human  freedom.  Pitt  longed  for  her  defeat 
in  America,  but  it  killed  him  when  it  came.  I  can 
understand  that  double  feeling  now.  .  . 

I  shan't  go  to  the  meeting,  it  will  be  a  Babel  of  row, 
and  I  fear  a  mere  scrimmage.  I  shrink  from  hearing  a 
lot  of  Englishmen  clamouring  for  war,  and  I  fear  a 
great  lot  of  such  folk  will  be  there,  so  I  shall  stay  at 
home  and  work. 

To  Miss  von  Glehn 

May  1877. 

Oh  would  I  were  a  bird,  dear  Olga — as  birds  pos- 
sess (at  least  in  Ireland)  the  privilege  of  being  in  two 


iv  LAST  YEARS  461 

places  at  once  !  Then  would  I  spend  next  Saturday 
and  Sunday  with  the  Grant  Duffs  in  Hertfordshire  and 
with  you  at  the  Peak  !  But  being  a  mere  featherless 
thing  I  fear  my  Hertfordshire  engagement  stops  the 
way.  But  if  the  next  Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  will 
suit  you  I  will  break  a  pledge  to  the  Tootingas  and 
spend  them  with  you.  Pray  let  me  know.  As  to  my 
constant  absence  from  home,  it  is  simply  the  insane 
jealousy  of  the  Slave  !  She  has  marked  me  for  her  own, 
and  suffers  no  rival  to  enter  my  door.  The  very  aged 
and  the  very  hideous  are  alone  permitted  to  mount  my 
stairs.  Meanwhile  my  position  becomes  hourly  more 
difficult.  I  see  the  ring  is  already  on  her  finger  !  In- 
conceivable impatience  !  If  I  am  to  be  her  own,  could 
she  not  wait  till  I  placed  the  fatal  circlet  on  her  fin — 
Oh,  Olga  !  may  you  never  know  what  it  is  to  be  wedded 
against  your  will.  Matrimony,  once  my  fondest  dream, 
is  now  my  nightmare.  Infant  slavies  sport  in  fancy 
round  my  bed — they  flourish  tiny  brooms  and  dust- 
pans, and  call  me  "  Father."  I  wake  from  horrid  visions 
that  She  is  mine,  and  I  cannot  give  her  a  month's  warn- 
ing. Pray  for  me  ;  and  when  you  come  again  storm 
my  stairs  whether  she  will  or  no.  How  I  would  fly 
into  your  arms — if  it  were  only  proper — and  hail  you 
as  my  Deliverer. — Affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

4  Beaumont  Street,  W. 


Archbishop  Tait  to  J.  R.  Green 

LAMBETH,  May  n,  1877. 

[See  next  letter.] 

MY  DEAR  GREEN — I  have  been  very  much  occupied  ; 
and  this  I  trust  you  will  accept  as  an  excuse  for  my 
not  sooner  acknowledging  your  resignation  of  the 
Lambeth  librarianship. 

Let  me  first  thank  you  heartily  for  the  kind  ex- 
pressions towards  myself  contained  in  your  note  to  my 


462  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

son.  I  rejoice  also  in  reading  what  you  say  to  him, 
that  much  of  what  you  feared  you  had  lost  in  belief  is 
again  clearer  and  more  real  to  you.  By  God's  blessing 
I  hope  and  trust  that  the  supports  and  comforts  of 
religion  will  grow  more  and  more  real  to  you  as  life 
wears  on.  You  have  from  health  had  many  trials,  but 
God  seems  to  have  brought  you  safely  through  them 
all  ;  and  I  cannot  doubt  that  He  intends  you  for  a 
useful  and  honourable  life.  May  His  presence  be  with 
you  in  all  difficulties  of  life  and  of  death. 

It  would  be  a  great  pleasure  to  me  at  any  time  to 
see  you. — Yours  sincerely,  A.  C.  CANTUAR. 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Miss  Stopford 

May  12,  1877. 

I  send  you  a  letter  of  Archbishop  Tait  in  answer  to 
a  formal  resignation  of  my  Lambeth  librarianship.  I 
sent  to  him  the  simple  note  of  resignation,  but  I 
accompanied  it  with  a  note  to  his  son  explaining — as  I 
ought  to  have  explained  long  ago — my  long  absence 
from  Lambeth.  I  said  plainly  that  my  opinions  had 
changed  to  a  very  great  extent,  and  that  I  felt  I  could 
not  fairly  act  as  Librarian  or  visit  at  Lambeth  without 
an  explanation  which  would  have  been  embarrassing 
to  the  Archbishop,  and  so  while  hesitating  what  to  do 
time  slipped  away.  Now  though  on  some  points  I 
had  begun  again  to  see  light  where  things  had  been 
dark  to  me,  I  still  saw  no  chance  of  resuming  my 
clerical  profession,  and  I  therefore  begged  A.  C.  T. 
to  accept  my  resignation  of  what  I  had  undertaken 
as,  and  still  held  to  be,  a  clerical  office.  I  think 
nothing  could  be  kinder  or  more  gracious  than  Tait's 
reply.  .  . 

I  saw  my  lawyer  to  "  give  instructions "  about 
"settlements"  yesterday,  and  left  him  with  the  im- 
pression that  I  was  an  utter  idiot.  "  I  think,"  he  said 
loftily  at  the  close,  "  I  think  I  had  better  act  entirely 


iv  LAST  YEARS  463 

on    my    own   judgment."       To    which,    ignoring    the 
sarcasm,  I  replied  "  Oh,  do  !  " 

I  am  going  to  Knebworth  to-day  to  spend  Sunday 
with  the  Grant  Duffs.  I  feel  I  want  a  breath  of  fresh 
air,  or  my  temper  will  grow  insufferable.  I  even 
growled  at  my  Phyllis  this  morning,  and  had  to 
apologise  to  that  rustic  one  in  deep  humility.  But  she 
smiled  as  though  she  understood. 

KNEBWORTH  PARK,  STEVENAGE, 
May  14,  1877. 

At  Knebworth  we  found  Chamberlain,  the  member 
for  Birmingham,  Lord  O'Hagan,  and  By  water,  a  young 
Oxford  tutor,  very  learned  and  very  witty  :  a  pleasant 
party.  .  .  .  The  place  is  Lord  Lytton's,  and  in  a  little 
fishing-lodge  beside  the  ornamental  water  the  "  immortal 
Novelist "  wrote  his  immortal  works  !  Unluckily  they 
bore  me  more  than  most  works,  and  I  feel  a  spiteful 
satisfaction  at  seeing  that  Lytton's  building  was  as 
artificial  as  his  fiction.  The  house  is  a  mass  of  costly 
gimcrackery,  gimcrack  finials  and  dragons  outside,  gim- 
crack  armour  and  sham  family  portraits  within.  The 
rooms  are  fine  and  the  whole  effect  handsome,  but 
everywhere  one  is  jarred  with  the  same  air  of  falsetto. 

25   CONNAUGHT  STREET, 

May  1 6,  1877. 

[There  was  a  small,  disused  church  and  graveyard  at 
the  back  of  the  house.] 

...  I  am  making  discoveries  in  the  "  park  "  at  the 
back  of  my  rooms.  Sterne's  grave  is  in  one  corner,  and 
I  find  that  the  site  of  Tyburn  gallows  was  in  the  other ! 
The  first  was  put  up  by  the  Freemasons,  because — as 
they  explain  in  the  inscription — Sterne  lived  by  four- 
square-measure, but  if  so  four-square-measure  is  hardly 
a  good  measure  to  mete  out  life  by.  The  gallows  needs 
no  freemason  to  explain  its  moral.  The  "  Park  "  is 
really  quite  pretty  now  that  all  the  trees  are  out,  and  I 


464  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

shall  growl  when   I  have  to  tear  myself  from  it  for 
Snowdonia. 

To-day  Snowdonia,  Italy,  Baths  of  Caracalla,  all 
seem  dreamlike  and  vague  to  me.  Only  rows  with 
printers,  and  stodgy  grind  at  "  revision "  have  any 
reality. 

May  20,  1877. 

I  have  done  less  to-day  than  usual ;  a  little  work 
this  morning,  and  an  afternoon  at  the  Athenaeum  over 
the  week's  papers  and  over  a  learned  article  in  the 
Revue  Historique  on  Athens  and  the  Greek  Colonies  in 
the  Black  Sea.  I  came  home  thinking  how  a  History  of 
Hellas  ought  to  be  written — it  would  be  a  very  different 
thing  if  I  ever  did  it  from  any  Greek  History  that  exists. 

May  23,  1877. 

"  Russian  sympathies "  just  now  mean  sympathies 
with  the  getting  rid  of  a  state  of  things  which  keeps 
the  world  always  on  the  brink  of  war,  and  with  the 
certain  evolution  of  arrangements  more  natural  and 
therefore  likely  to  be  more  peaceful.  I  like  to  see 
the  cynics  of  the  clubs  and  the  hard-headed  Whigs 
growling  at  "  sentiment,"  while  "  sentiment  "  is  making 
nations. 

May  26,  1877. 

I  have  just  been  finishing  and  giving  the  last  touches 
to  the  close  of  vol.  i.,  that  is  Joan  of  Arc  and  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses.  It  is  a  mercy  to  have  really  got  down  so 
far.  This  last  part  from  Richard  II.  to  1460  has  been  a 
stiffer  job  than  I  counted  on.  It  is  so  scandalously 
done  in  my  Little  Book  that  I  got  no  help  there  and 
had  to  work  wholly  afresh.  I  think  my  greatest  gain 
in  these  last  years  is  a  will  and  capacity  to  work  at 
periods  I  don't  like  as  much  as  periods  I  do.  It  wasn't 
so  when  I  wrote  Little  Book,  and  what  with  that,  and 
what  with  the  wilfulness  that  came  of  my  wretched 
health  at  that  time,  I  did  such  shameful  bits  of  work 


iv  LAST  YEARS  465 

as  the  page  in  which  I  hurried  over  Henry  the  Fourth. 
This  was  the  real  fault  of  the  book,  its  inequality  of 
treatment,  its  fitfulness  and  waywardness — not  the  faults 
the  Rowleys  were  down  on. 

Sunday,  May  27,  1877. 

I  do  not  vex  myself  as  I  used  with  questions  that  I 
cannot  answer.  I  do  not  strive  to  bring  my  thoughts 
to  rule  and  measure — but  new  life  brings  with  it  new 
hopes,  new  cravings  after  belief,  new  faith  that  we  will 
know  what  is  true.  Vague,  dim  hopes ;  vague,  dim  faith 
it  may  be — but  I  am  not  impatient  of  vagueness  and 
dimness  as  I  used  to  be.  I  see  now  that  to  know  we 
must  live,  that  to  know  the  right  we  must  live  the  right. 

May  28,  1877. 

[Green  was  forced  by  his  health  to  abandon  the 
proposed  revision  of  the  Short  History  in  one  volume. 
The  three  volumes  here  mentioned  presently  expanded 
into  the  History  of  the  English  People  in  four  volumes.] 

To-day  I  took  to  Macmillan's  my  manuscript  up  to 
Wolsey,  so  you  see  I  am  getting  on.  I  won't  try  to 
clear  your  mind  wholly  as  to  my  plans,  but  ( i )  I  have 
ceased  for  the  present  to  go  on  with  the  work  on  Early 
England,  which  will  come  out  some  day  and  end  with 
the  Norman  Conquest ;  (2)  I  am  now  putting  through 
the  press  the  three  volumes  of  my  revision  of  the  Short 
History  in  octavo  ;  and  (3)  I  have  made  such  extensive 
changes,  and  so  wholly  altered  the  plan,  etc.,  and  so 
greatly  expanded  it  in  parts,  that  in  the  bulk  of  it  the 
original  Short  History  does  not  help  me  much. 

ATHENJEUM  CLUB, 
May  30,  1877. 

I  am  chained  here.  I  must  get  the  work  I  am  doing 
finished  up  to  Elizabeth's  day  in  the  next  fortnight, 
because  I  can't  take  abroad  the  huge  calendars  I  need 
for  that  period.  I  always  hated  people  who  published 
in  Quartos,  and  now  I  hate  them  more  than  ever.  I 

2  H 


466  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

am  very  tired  and  weary  too,  and  my  work  presses  on 
me  as  it  has  seldom  done,  but  I  go  doggedly  on.  .  .  . 
The  day  has  been  a  peculiarly  trying  one  to-day  ;  I 
rose  weary  and  depressed,  and  my  morning's  work 
was  diplomatic  work,  which  is  very  difficult  and  which 
does  not  interest  me,  then  I  had  an  afternoon  engage- 
ment, and  then  I  worked  again  for  a  couple  of  hours 
till  I  could  not  work  longer.  So  as  the  evening  was 
clear  and  winsome  I  wandered  out  into  the  Park  and 
then  down  here  for  a  cup  of  cocoa  and  a  quiet  read 
of  a  Lecture  of  Huxley's  on  University  Teaching, 
and  a  paper  on  Florentine  Bankers  in  an  old  Revue 
des  deux  Mondes.  Voila  my  recreations.  Then  Fitz- 
James  Stephen  came  in  and  we  had  a  long  and  jolly  chat 
about  trials  and  India  and  what  not. 

June  i,  1877. 

What  did  you  think  of  Gladstone's  speech?  I 
hope  you  saw  his  notice  of  the  "  New  Historical 
School "  and  of  a  certain  member  of  it.  It  was  cer- 
tainly well  worth  remarking  that  every  conspicuous 
historian  in  England  goes  with  Gladstone  in  this 
matter.  But  I  suppose  the  Pall  Mall  will  say  that 
historians  know  nothing  about  the  present,  and  V.  in 
the  Standard  will  call  us  "  paper-stainers."  Just  now  I 
am  more  interested  in  the  Western  than  in  the  Eastern 
results  of  this  Birmingham  movement.  It  may  end  not 
only  in  a  reconstruction  of  the  Liberal  party,  but  in  a 
new  system  of  political  party  altogether,  with  principles 
gathered  from  the  general  opinion  of  all  who  belong  to 
it  rather  than  given  from  above  by  the  knot  of  oldish 
gentlemen  who  sit  on  the  "  front  bench." 

ATHENJEUM  CLUB,  June  2,  1877. 

I  have  just  been  having  an  hour's  talk  with  my 
Cardinal,  and  I  must  have  an  hour's  talk  with  you  to 
save  my  Protestantism !  Manning  is  certainly  a  charm- 
ing conversationalist,  courteous,  full  of  information, 


iv  LAST  YEARS  467 

with  exquisite  felicity  of  expression,  and  lending  himself 
with  perfect  ease  to  every  turn  of  topic — which  I  always 
take  to  be  the  essential  difference  between  conversation 
and  dissertation.  We  talked  of  Bryce  and  Colonies 
and  Irish  character  and  Italian  scenery  and  English 
education  and  a  hundred  other  matters  till  "  his 
Eminence  "  had  to  rise  to  go. 

My  revising  yesterday  left  me  headachy  and  cross 
this  morning,  and  I  was  glad  to  get  my  proofs  done 
and  go  out  into  the  Park.  But  —  second  of  June 
though  Letts  assured  it  to  be — I  was  chilled  even  in 
my  thick  greatcoat  by  the  pitiless  rain,  and  driven  in 
for  shelter  to  the  Club  for  lunch,  to  read  the  week's 
papers,  to  smile  over  a  letter  I  found  here  from  Free- 
man, to  run  over  the  magazines  at  tea,  and  to  wade 
through  a  series  of  papers  on  Pitt's  finance  till  I  was 
interrupted  by  my  Cardinal. 

25  CONNAUGHT  STREET, 
June  3,  1877. 

I  am  going  across  the  Park  to  have  a  chat  with 
Stanley  and  to  hear  his  sermon  on  Motley's  death. 
Stanley,  whom  I  met  yesterday,  said  it  was  just  such  a 
death  as  any  one  would  wish,  a  stroke  of  paralysis,  and 
then  an  unconscious  fading  away  in  a  few  hours.  He 
is  to  be  buried  at  Kensal  Green,  but  the  Dean  has 
offered  to  have  the  body  brought  into  the  Abbey  and 
the  first  part  of  the  service  read  over  it  there.  This 
is  very  graceful  and  becoming  whether  they  accept  it 
or  no. 

25  CONNAUGHT  STREET, 
June  ^  1877. 

I  have  just  come  from  Westminster  Abbey,  where 
Stanley  has  been  preaching  on  poor  Motley's  death. 
Unhappily  he  was  obliged  to  devote  the  bulk  of  his 
sermon  to  St.  Margaret's,  Westminster,  which  Farrar, 
its  new  rector,  is  just  restoring ;  and  so  what  he  said 
was  short.  It  was  the  shorter  too  that  he  had  to  make 
an  eulogy  of  General  Grant,  who  turned  up  at  the 


468  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

service  :  an  awkward  matter,  for  Grant  and  Motley 
were  personal  foes.  I  should  have  liked  Stanley  to 
have  pointed  out  the  thing  which  strikes  me  most  in 
Motley,  that  alone  of  all  men  past  and  present  he  knit 
together  not  only  America  and  England,  but  that  Older 
England  which  we  left  on  Frisian  shores,  and  which  grew 
into  the  United  Netherlands.  A  child  of  America,  the 
historian  of  Holland,  he  made  England  his  adopted 
country,  and  in  England  his  body  rests. 

However,  what  the  Dean  said  was  generous  and 
noble,  and  the  phrase — "  an  historian  at  once  so  ardent 
and  so  laborious" — struck  me  as  most  happy.  He 
asked  me  to  go  into  the  Deanery,  to  introduce  me — as 
I  found — to  General  Grant,  who  shook  hands  and  said, 
"  Mr.  Green  "  in  a  dry  voice,  and  said  no  more  !  You 
know  the  story  of  Moltke  and  the  young  subaltern  who 
found  himself  put  by  error  into  the  same  compartment 
with  the  Field  Marshal.  "  Pardon,  sir,"  said  the  sub- 
altern when  he  entered,  and  "  Pardon,  sir  !  "  when  the 
train  stopped  and  he  could  at  last  retire.  "  What  an 
insufferable  prater ! "  said  Moltke.  I  think  Grant 
seems  to  almost  rival  the  man  who  "  can  be  silent  in 
eleven  languages."  By-the-bye,  Stanley  talked  of  his 
"  laying  down  the  sceptre,"  which  I  thought  hardly  a 
Republican  phrase,  but  Lord  O'Hagan  to  whom  I 
repeated  it  said,  "  He  must  have  laid  down  something  ; 
he  had  no  crown  to  lay  down,  and  he  certainly  wouldn't 
lay  down  his  pipe  !  " 

Grant  is  a  short,  square,  bourgeois -looking  man, 
rather  like  a  shy  but  honest  draper.  Still  he  could  take 
a  look  of  dignity  when  one  was  "  presented,"  and  I 
didn't  forget  that  he  had  been  a  ruler  of  men. 

...  I  have  written  to  L.  that  I  cannot  let  these 
rooms  in  August  or  September.  My  work  is  so 
behind-hand  after  all  my  grind  that  we  must  come 
back  here  after  a  little  holiday  at  the  end  of  July,  and 
devote  ourselves  for  a  couple  of  months  to  getting  on 
with  my  book. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  469 

June  ^  1877. 

To-night  it  is  very  still,  the  air  is  soft  and  warm.  I 
have  been  standing  out  in  the  "balcony"  looking  over 
my  death-garden,  with  its  great,  shadowy  tree  masses 
breaking  the  square  house  lines  around. 

June  5. 

.  .  .  But  these  owls  always  get  between  one's  soul  and 
the  sun — as  if  sunshine  was  something  dangerous.  Ah 
me,  I  fear  I  shall  always  be  more  Hellenic  than  Christian 
— but  life,  life  in  all  its  energy  and  brightness  and  quick 
movement,  life  in  all  its  quick  interchange  of  laughter 
and  tears,  why  do  these  men  fear  it  so  and  preach  it 
down  ?  They  preach  it  down  !  They  go  their  way  and 
the  sun  shines  on,  and  the  world  laughs  for  freedom 
and  for  joy ! 

I  have  had  Professor  B.  here  to  breakfast — a  pleasant 
fellow  with  pleasant  children,  of  whose  questions  and 
answers  he  talked  much  by  way  of  showing  how  "  First 
Books "  should  be  written.  I  listened  and  learned  ; 
but  the  more  I  theorise  about  what  my  Primer  of 
English  History  should  be,  the  less  clearly  do  I  see 
how  it  is  ever  to  be  done.  "  Just  sit  down,"  says  the 
dear  Macmillan,  "  and  you  will  write  a  good  book 
which  will  sell."  No  doubt  —  but  I  want  to  write 
something  more  than  "  a  good  book  which  will 
sell."  x 

To-day  I  have  been  up  to  my  knees  in  proofs, 
my  "  row "  with  the  printers  having  brought  me  an 
avalanche.  I  have  had  my  "  cold  fit "  about  the  new 
book  on  me  of  late,  but  the  sense  that  it  will  be  a 
failure  lightens  a  little  as  it  gets  into  type  ;  and  I  own 
I  brightened  a  little  over  the  pages  of  William  the 
Conqueror's  character  to-day.  But  what  ups  and 
downs  of  hope  and  despondency  you  will  have  to 
bear ! 

1  The  Primer  was  begun  and  the  first  slips  printed,  but  it  was  never  continued. 


470  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 


To  Miss  Kate  Norgate  ' 

B  ETTWS-Y-COED, 

June  1 8,  1877. 

.  .  .  Your  divisions  seem  to  me  quite  right  and 
clear.  By  all  means  keep  to  them.  But  remember 
all  the  while  that  divisions  are  simply  helps  to  greater 
clearness  of  treatment — that  they  do  not  exist,  at  least 
with  definite  edges^  in  nature  itself — and  that  all  the 
while  you  write  you  must  try  to  hold  your  story  as  one 
story,  and  to  carry  it  across  division  after  division  as  a 
continuous  whole. 

Then  again  try  to  vary  your  point  of  view  as  you  pass 
from  one  division  to  another.  For  instance,  in  the  early 
part  it  is  impossible  to  get  any  biographical  hold  of  the  men, 
See  whether  you  can  make  up  for  this  by  finding  some 
other  "  centre "  of  interest,  for  instance  by  taking 
Anjou  itself  as  the  basis  of  your  story,  describing  it  as 
well  as  you  can,  picturing  its  towns  or  castles  or  rivers, 
as  you  can  find  about  them,  and  so  on.  Of  course,  all 
this  would  be  merely  tentative  ;  you  could  only  describe 
the  country  thoroughly  when  you  have  seen  it ;  but  in 
the  effort  to  get  at  its  appearance  from  books  and  maps, 
or  at  the  look  of  the  towns  or  churches  from  any 
collection  of  pictures  or  illustrated  books,  you  would 
prepare  yourself  to  •profit  by  the  actual  sight  of  it  all— 
you  would  clear  your  mind  as  to  the  things  you  speci- 
ally wanted  to  see. 

Then,  clearly,  with  Fulk  the  Black  you  passed  to  the 
biographical  mode  of  treatment.  Seize  your  man.  Try 
to  picture  him  to  yourself  in  all  his  fierce  greed  and 
activity  and  ruthlessness  and  craft.  Help  yourself  by 
using  the  legends  about  him — telling  them  as  legends, 
disproving  their  historical  accuracy,  if  it  be  needful,  but 
gathering  from  them  the  conception  of  character  which 
after  days  formed  of  him,  and  using  them  as  colour  for 
your  picture. 

Then  again,  with  the  "  conquest  of  Touraine  "  make 


iv  LAST  YEARS  471 

Tours  your  centre,  take  its  history  from  early  days  by 
way  of  digression,  tell  a  story  or  two  about  St.  Martin 
(look  through  his  life  by  Sulpitius  Severus,  if  you  like), 
or  about  the  quarrels  over  his  relics,  or  Count  Fulk  the 
Good  sitting  as  canon  in  the  choir,  and  so  on.  Then 
its  capture  will  become  a  living  thing  to  your  reader  ; 
he  will  see  what  importance  the  town  had  in  those  days, 
and  so  what  new  importance  its  possession  gave  its 
Angevin  counts. 

Remember,  these  are  simply  hints  to  help  you,  for 
you  will  have  to  work  in  your  own  way,  as  we  all  have ; 
I  only  tell  you  in  what  way  I  should  probably  work  out 
this  part  of  history  because  it  may  furnish  incidentally 
some  hints  for  your  own  treatment  of  it. — I  am  faith- 
fully yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  DE  LILLE,  PARIS, 
January  22,  1878. 

My  work  is  over,  dear  Freeman,  and  now  for  a  wild 
shriek  of  liberty !  In  other  words  I  have  sent  vol.  ii. 
to  press  and  buried  Elizabeth,  and  have  now  time  and 
thought  to  bestow  on  my  friends.  Most  of  the  new 
volume  is  new  ;  and  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  newer  than 
the  rest.  Even  Shakespeare  had  to  be  practically  re- 
written before  I  could  satisfy  a  keen  critic,  yclept  my 
wife.  I  bore  in  mind  throughout  your  judgment  on 
"  Shorts  "  that  the  sixteenth  century  was  the  weakest 
part  of  it  and  wanted  rethinking  and  rewriting  ;  and  I 
have  done  my  best  to  rethink  and  rewrite  it.  Now 
that  I  look  back  on  "Shorts"  and  its  treatment  of  the 
Reformation  period,  I  quite  agree  with  your  condemna- 
tion. Still  it  needed  courage  to  set  aside  work  which 
the  bulk  of  readers  liked  most  of  all ;  so  I  hope  you 
will  praise  me  for  my  loyalty  to  truth,  whether  I  have 
muddled  my  book  or  no.  The  volume  will  be  out  in 
February.  I  don't  mean  to  think  about  English  history 
or  England  more  than  I  can  help  for  a  whole  month. 


472  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

My  head  is  a  good  servant,  but  I  have  been  a  hard 
master  to  it  of  late,  and  it  needs  a  holiday.  My  holiday 
has  opened  pleasantly  enough.  .  .  . 

My  last  news  of  you  was  a  cheery  letter  to  Mac- 
millan  after  you  reached  Salerno.  I  hope  your  health 
is  better  with  the  new  air  and  new  rest.  Were  I  you, 
I  would  simply  rest  and  leave  Turks  and  Froudes  to  go 
the  way  of  Turks  and  Froudes.  .  .  .  Were  I  a  man  for 
notes  and  controversies  I  have  somewhat  to  say  anent 
Anthony  and  Tudor  facts  and  fictions.  But  I  grudge 
spending  moments  on  Anthony  which  may  be  spent  on 
better  things.  Life  is  so  short  and  history  is  so  long  ; 
and  there  be  volumes  three  yet  to  write,  and  so  much 
to  say  in  them — so  I  let  the  Anthonies  go  their  way  to 
their  own  place.  .  .  . 

Before  leaving  London  I  set  Maine  a-moving  to  see 
whether  Dizzy  could  be  moved  to  kick  Bright  upstairs 
into  the  Divinity  chair,  Stubbs  upstairs  into  the  Ecc. 
History  chair,  and  leave  the  Regius  for  you.  Unluckily 
he  has  most  influence  with  Salisbury,  and  Salisbury  little 
with  Dizzy  just  now.  Moreover,  Dizzy  loveth  neither 
Ritualists  nor  Anti-Turks.  Still  the  said  Dizzy  has 
noble  points!  He  reads  and  gives  away  "Shorts." 
It  is  delightful  to  think  of  W.  Gladstone  and  he  being 
bound  in  one  by  that  interesting  little  work  !  .  .  . 

Messieurs  les  Grecs  have  been  a  shade  too  clever  ! 
"  Insurrections  in  Thessaly,"  "  movements  over  the 
border,"  come  a  trifle  after  the  fair.  Still  with  all  their 
faults  I  look  on  the  Greeks  as  the  political  nucleus  round 
which  the  other  Eastern  Christians  must  gather  ;  and  I 
wish  they  could  have  Constantinople.  Oh,  if  that  grand 
Immobility  at  the  Foreign  Office  would  move  in  that 
direction,  then  would  Israel  not  rejoice  and  Judah  would 
be  right  sorry  ;  but  we  should  see  some  settlement  of 
the  Eastern  question.  As  it  is,  if  Greece  is  left  out  in 
the  cold  it  only  means  a  new  Eastern  question  from 
Thessaly  instead  of  Bulgaria. — Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  473 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  CAPRI, 
February  17,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN —  .  .  .  And  I  was  happy,  too, 
to  hear  that  you  are  getting  really  better  and  stronger. 
My  one  way  of  getting  right  is  that  of  sitting  still  ;  and 
in  spite  of  Hellenic  temptations  at  Agrigentum  and 
elsewhere  I  hope  you  will  sit  all  the  stiller  when  you  feel 
a  bit  stronger  than  you  do  now.  It  is  just  when  people 
"  feel  better  "  that  they  generally  set  to  and  throw  away 
all  the  good  they  have  gained.  For  me,  I  got  a  good 
deal  shaken  by  my  midwinter  journey  ;  and  now  I  am 
at  rest  I  feel  as  if  no  mosaics  or  tombs  of  Fredericks 
could  set  me  a-travelling  again.  Capri  is  just  about  big 
enough  to  interest  me.  My  mind  wont  run  beyond 
some  three  or  four  miles  either  way ;  and  I  feel  quite 
comfortable  to  know  that  the  cliff  and  my  range  of 
interest  coincide.  I  can't  meet  people  at  the  tomb  of 
the  Emperor  Frederick  ;  but  I  can  meet  them  in  the 
palace  of  Emperor  Tiberius  ;  and  we  can  look  one  way 
at  a  Roman  camp  and  another  way  at  a  mediaeval  castle 
and  up  at  a  hermitage  in  the  clouds  and  down  at  the 
sea  and  across  at  the  snow-rimmed  Apennines.  What 
I  like  best  here  is  the  homeliness  of  our  life.  The 
Capri  doctor  looks  in  and  prescribes  for  my  cold,  but 
waives  aside  my  five  franks  with  a  pretty  speech  about 
the  pleasure  he  has  gained  from  my  conversation.  The 
hotel-keeper  sternly  refuses  to  charge  any  "  extras,"  even 
if  we  dine  in  our  own  room  and  give  infinite  trouble. 
The  head  waiter  sends  to  Naples  for  a  magnificent 
bouquet  of  camellias,  and  presents  it  to  my  wife, 
saying  :  "  Mr.  Green  came  here  before  unmarried  ;  now 
he  comes  married  ;  it  is  right  you  should  have  a  regale" 
(marriage  gift). 

It  is  odd  how  I  have  drifted  away  from  English 
history  in  a  month  !  I  can  hardly  believe  that  thirty 
days  ago  my  head  was  full  of  Philip  of  Spain  and  the 


474  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

two  Cecils.  Now  I  care  for  nothing  but  strolls  in  the 
morning  and  climbs  in  the  afternoon  and  hunts  after 
the  best  violet-beds  and  the  early  narcissus  bunches.  I 
am  in  fact  getting  brighter  and  stronger  in  this  pure 
light  mountain  and  sea  air,  and  above  all  in  this  perfect 
rest — so  much  brighter  and  stronger  that  I  am  thinking 
of  buying  a  house  here  to  tempt  me  to  spend  every 
winter  at  Capri.  It  will  be  charming  to  sit  literally 
under  one's  own  vine  and  one's  own  fig-tree. 

Rome  seems  topsy-turvy  by  the  deaths  of  Pope  and 
King — imagine  the  Pantheon  blocked  up  by  a  "  Kata- 
falk,"  with  four  colossal  ladies  in  plaster  at  the  corners 
which  were  Rome,  Florence,  Milan,  and  Naples  till  Pio 
Nono  declared  not  a  mass  should  be  said  there  so  long 
as  they  bore  those  names,  on  which  ingenious  Italy 
turned  them  into  the  four  Cardinal  Virtues.  And  people 
fancy  it  will  be  turned  topsy-turvy  by  the  coming  of  a 
new  Pope — so  I  shall  stop  here  till  these  Papal  tyrannies 
be  overpast  and  peace  come  again  to  the  Scarlet  Woman, 
which  I  take  it  will  be  about  the  middle  of  March.— 
Affectionately  yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

50  WELBECK  STREET,  W., 
September  30,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN — I  am  exceedingly  glad  that 
you  can  see  your  way  to  doing  the  Primer.  It  need  in 
no  wise  clash  with  your  continuation  of  Old  E.  H.  As 
to  the  plan  I  quite  go  with  you  in  all  else  ;  but  instead 
of  the  central  portion,  that  is  to  say  the  bulk  of  the 
book,  being  "  Edward,  Harold,  William,"  would  it  not 
be  well  to  make  the  Conquest  itself  the  central  point  in 
the  middle  of  the  Primer,  and  done  in  greater  relief 
than  the  rest,  and  to  treat  Edward  and  Harold  as  pre- 
fatory, and  William's  own  reign,  and  parcelling  out  of 
England,  legal,  etc.,  changes,  and  the  like,  as  con- 
sequential ?  In  other  words  to  carry  out  on  the  small 
the  original  plan  of  your  big  Norm.  Conq.  which  I 


iv  LAST  YEARS  475 

have  always  mourned  over,  as  so  greatly  superior  in 
point  of  art  to  the  present  one  ;  I  mean  your  three- 
volume  scheme  in  which  the  central  vol.  is  the  Con- 
quest^ and  the  vols.  before  and  after  its  prelude  and 
results.  Putting  it  in  the  practical  way  I  like  myself 
in  these  wee  books,  this  would  give,  I.  General 
Introduction,  Normandy  and  England,  and  their 
affairs  up  to  /Ethelbert,  say  pp.  1-13  ; 

II.  Thence  to  Harold's  crowning  or  so,  pp.  13-46, 
thirty-three  pages ; 

III.  The  Conquest    1066-1071    or  so,  thirty-three 
more,  pp.  46-79  ; 

IV.  The  Norman  Kings  to  Tenchebrai  or  so,  includ- 
ing Will's  confiscations,  settlements,  etc.,  thirty-three 
more,  79-112  ; 

V.  Epilogue  on  general  results,  112-126,  fourteen 
pages. 

Will  you  consider  this  ?  What  I  think  we  should 
aim  at  in  these  smaller  books  is  to  produce  in  a  boy's 
mind  one  definite  impression  ;  and  he  can  only  get  this 
by  having  some  one  central  event  brought  strongly  out, 
much  more  strongly  than  we  older  and  more  "  feelo- 
sofical "  folk  need  it,  and  all  other  matters  grouped 
round  it.  Besides,  though  it's  I  that  say  it  who 
shouldn't,  boys  like  fighting,  and  it's  through  war  and 
the  picturesqueness  of  war  that  we  can  best  get  them 
to  follow  out  and  understand  the  historical  and  larger 
aspects  of  things.  The  only  difference,  in  fact,  between 
this  plan  and  yours  is  the  bringing  out  on  a  larger 
and  more  prominent  scale  of  the  central  fight  for 
England,  and  this,  I  fancy,  will  suit  you  as  well  as 
it  suits  the  boys. 

You  see  I  have  learnt  somewhat  since  I  writ  "Shorts" 
with  its  fling  against  "drum  and  trumpet"  history. 
But  I  still  hold  that  battles  are  milk  for  babes,  and 
that  if  you  could  interest  a  boy  in  history  by  banging 
the  big  drum,  you  ought  to  be  able  to  carry  on  his 
interest  in  it  when  he  groweth  to  be  a  man  by  more 
peaceful  and  less  noisy  instruments. 


476  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

We  are  engaged  for  Wednesday,  and  I  fear  shall 
hardly  be  able  to  catch  the  love-birds  on  their  flight 
through  town,  but  we  will  try. 

I  see,  to  some  extent,  your  feeling  about  the 
Professorship ;  and  quite  agree  with  you  that  you 
could  not,  nor  is  it  in  any  wise  needful  that  you 
should,  "put  yourself  eagerly  forward."  You  have  of 
course  passed  out  of  the  stage  of  "  testimonials,"  etc., 
save  in  giving  them  to  others.  But  it  would  equally 
of  course  be  needful  that  you  should  offer  yourself 
as  a  candidate  by  sending  in  your  name  to  the 
electors,  and  this,  as  I  gather,  you  are  ready  to 
do.  They  could  not  as  a  public  body  offer  the  post 
to  you  without  some  such  indication  of  your  willing- 
ness to  accept  it  and  discharge  its  duties.  I  will 
send  that  part  of  your  letter  on  to  Maine,  and  hear 
what  he  suggests  next.  Nothing,  I  take  it,  can  be 
formally  done  till  he  resigns  the  chair  at  the  end  of 
the  year.  But  I  will  write  and  tell  you. 

I  fear — as  things  go  —  that  should  Stubbs  go  to 
this  chair  your  chance  of  the  "  Regius "  would  be 
small.  Brewer  or  some  far  worse  man  would  get  it. 
I  own  I  don't  think  so  much  of  Brewer  since  I  read 
that  last  volume  of  preface  of  his.  His  short  work 
is  better  than  his  long  work  ;  and  his  theological  bias 
is  so  pronounced  and  so  perverse  as  to  shake  all  con- 
fidence in  his  way  of  looking  at  things.  Neither  do 
I  think  Gardiner  improves  as  he  goes  on.  He  is 
evidently  afraid  of  not  looking  at  things  as  Ranke 
looks  at  them.  Now  Ranke  looks  fairly  enough,  for 
one  who  is  not  an  Englishman,  and  has  done  good  in 
bringing  out  the  foreign  and  foreign-policy  side  of 
things  ;  but  for  one  who  is  an  Englishman  and  who 
sees  from  his  own  very  boyhood  things  in  a  light  in 
which  Ranke  could  not  see  them,  the  Ranke  point  of 
view  is  a  very  inadequate  and  miserable  one.  Then 
too  the  painting  Laud  as  a  champion  of  religious 
liberty  of  thought,  is  almost  equal  to  any  paradox  of 
Froude. — Yours  ever  affectionately,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  477 

P.S. — /  am  ready  for  the  Primer  whenever  you 
can  do  it. 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

50  WELBECK  STREET, 
November  20,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  FREEMAN —  ...  I  am  delighted  to  hear 
you  are  so  well — and  that  you  won't  be  torn  away  from 
Somerleaze.  The  foul  weather  does  me  no  harm  ;  but 
it  is  foul  weather  and  I  long  for  a  sight  of  the  sun. 
Haply  you  are  luckier  in  that  matter  down  in  the  West 
country.  I  have  done  my  little  "  Historical  Readers," 
which  gave  me  just  ten  times  the  amount  of  trouble  I 
expected,  and  also  finished  the  reign  of  King  Jamie — 
whom,  having  now  studied  all  that  Gardiner  and  Ranke 
can  say  for  him  and  read  a  good  bit  of  the  things  they 
refer  me  to,  I  think  worse  of  than  ever.  For  this  no 
doubt  I  shall  be  properly  "  put  down,"  but  in  spite  of 
all  the  Gairdners  and  "  Rollsmen  "  I  shall  go  on  loving 
freedom  and  the  men  who  won  it  for  us  to  the  end  of 
the  chapter.  In  an  offshoot  of  the  Times  yesterday  I 
saw  some  remarks  of  Bismarck  on  "  despatches  "  and 
"  State  papers,"  which  the  Ranke  school  might  weigh  to 
their  great  profit.  He  looks  on  such  materials  as  of 
very  little  value.  "What,"  he  asks,  "would  all  the 
current  despatches  tell  of  my  real  policy  or  that  of 
Gladstone  or  Thiers"  ?  Surely  they  tell  even  less  of 
national  feeling,  of  those  impulses  which  (and  not  the 
policy  of  statesmen)  really — with  my  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
and  Ranke' s  good  leave — make  history.  However  I 
am  out  of  fashion  in  all  this,  and  as  the  dear  Appleton 
says,  "  an  unscientific  writer  !  "  I  shan't  do  much  to 
the  Great  Rebellion,  and  thence  all  is  printed  to  about 
1 700,  so  that  vol.  iii.  will  soon  be  ready ;  vol.  iv.  will 
be  a  different  matter,  but  I  shall  be  glad  to  get  to 
utterly  new  work  which  it  will  give  me,  as  "  Shorts " 
has  nothing  for  that  later  time  and  I  am  left  free. 

Good-bye. — Ever  yours  affectionately, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


478  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  QUISISANA,  CAPRI, 
February  28,  1880. 

.  .  .  My  wife  has  just  gone  through  your  Norman 
Conquest  and  is  now  deep  in  Stubbs,  having  taken 
Lingard's  Anglo-Saxon  Church  by  the  way.  She  is  help- 
ing me  amazingly  in  the  work  I  have  now  set  about — a 
book  on  our  own  history  up  to  your  Norman  Conquest, 
not  of  course  on  your  scale,  but  in  modest  form.  Dear 
old  Stubbs,  when  I  spoke  to  him  of  it,  said  that  there 
was  nothing  new  to  be  said,  and  that  folk  would  not 
read  of  things  before  1066,  and  perhaps  he  is  right. 
But  I  should  like  to  try  to  make  them,  before  bowing 
to  this  doom.  As  a  matter  of  fact  much  of  our  early 
history  is  even  in  point  of  incident  more  interesting 
than  many  after  periods,  and  though  no  reviewer  save 
you  noticed  that  part  of  "  Shorts,"  yet  I  think  most 
readers  liked  it  as  well  as  any.  But  what  I  shall  aim  at 
is,  not  to  do  much  in  the  directly  "political  events" 
way,  but  rather  to  bring  out  what  I  can  of  the  actual  life 
of  early  England  by  the  help  of  laws,  etc. ;  and  in  spite 
of  Stubbs  I  find  much  that  has  not  been  told  as  yet. 
However  I  mean  to  be  modest,  and  I  shall  fight  hard 
to  keep  it  down  to  a  single  volume.  I  am  at  work  now 
on  the  "  Conquest,"  which  I  hope  to  tell  at  some  length 
— but  I  doubt  more  and  more  the  Chronicle  chronology, 
though  the  order  of  the  Conquests  in  the  Chronicle,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  is  clearly  right.  The  true  key,  I  think, 
lies  in  what  Kemble  pointed  out  long  ago,  the  number 
of  names  of  settlement  in  each  district  as  a  test  of 
priority  ;  adding  to  it  the  relative  size  of  their  hundreds 
and  (with  more  caution)  the  patronymic  names  among 
the  settlements.  On  the  actual  dates  I  find  Skene's 
arguments  very  hard  to  meet.  As  to  the  Conquest 
itself  I  am  using  Geography  a  good  deal  as  a  guide,  and 
I  find  some  of  the  results  very  interesting.  For  instance, 
I  had  grounds  for  thinking  that  there  was  little  contact 
between  the  folk  who  conquered  the  Lincoln  country 


iv  LAST  YEARS  479 

and  those  who  conquered  Southern  Yorkshire.  I 
thought  this  odd  till  I  put  in  on  my  map  the  great 
Axholme  tract  on  the  lower  Trent,  and  saw  how  all  but 
impossible  such  contact  then  was. 

Of  course  I  am  sorely  tried  by  the  lack  of  books, 
though  I  sent  out  a  huge  box.  But  still  the  quiet  and 
sunshine  of  the  place  are  great  helps  to  work  and 
especially  to  the  "thinking"  side  of  work  :  and  as  Rome 
and  Naples  are  still  chilly  I  don't  think  I  shall  leave 
this  warm  little  nook  for  awhile.  All  I  am  resolved 
on  is  to  get  about  a  month  at  Rome  and  to  be  in 
England  by  the  ist  of  May.  There  is  a  "  four 
hundredth "  anniversary  of  my  old  Magdalen  school 
later  on  in  May,  whither  they  want  me  to  go  ;  and 
perhaps  I  may  go  and  look  at  the  old  place  again  after 
these  five-and-twenty  years. 

You  were  very  hard  (Jan.  29)  on  "the  fools  and 
chatterers  of  London"  for  doubting  whether  the  "Liberal 
reaction  "  was  a  fact.  Well,  a  month  has  gone  by,  and 
perhaps  you  would  hardly  be  so  hard  on  the  "  fools  and 
chatterers "  now.  I  see  no  more  ground  indeed  for 
the  depression  of  Liberals  to-day  than  for  their  exulta- 
tion a  month  ago.  I  believe  that  public  opinion  is  still 
wavering,  that  there  is  no  general  love  of  the  govern- 
ment, but  on  the  contrary  there  is  a  steady  distaste  for 
its  new  plans  and  its  big  schemes  ;  but  that  there  is  no 
more  love  for  the  opposition,  and  as  steady  a  distrust 
of  the  attitude  of  a  Liberal  ministry  in  the  coming 
overturning  of  Europe.  Just  now  I  fancy  John  Bull's 
real  feeling  is  "a  plague  o'  both  your  houses."  But  as 
to  the  coming  elections — if  things  stand  as  they  are — 
I  fancy  the  Home-rulers  will  win  some  Conservative 
seats  in  Ireland,  the  Liberals  a  few  Tory  seats  in  Scot- 
land, and  the  Tories  perhaps  a  Liberal  seat  or  two  in 
England,  and  that  is  all.  However,  one  great  mistake 
or  failure  on  Dizzy's  part  would  swing  feeling  round 
with  a  vengeance,  and  such  a  blunder  may  well  come 
any  day. 

Here,   as   elsewhere   on    the    Continent,    all    other 


480  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          PART 

political  questions  are  dwarfed  by  the  dread  of  a  coming 
war.  Italy  believes  she  holds  the  key  of  the  situation, 
that  without  her  the  combination  of  France,  Russia, 
and  Turkey  is  hopeless,  that  with  her  these  powers  will 
smash  up  the  two  German  states,  and  so  she  haggles 
for  her  price  with  both  sides.  I  think  she  will  get  it, 
and  then  —  Good-bye.  —  Ever  affectionately  yours, 

J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Humphry  Ward 

HOTEL  QUIRINALE,  ROME, 
1880. 


.  .  .  Whether  Gladstone  takes  office  or  no  let  us 
never  forget  that  the  triumph  is  his.  He  and  he  only 
among  the  Liberals  I  met  or  heard  of  never  despaired. 
He  and  he  only  foresaw  what  the  verdict  on  this  "  great 
trial  "  would  be.  When  folk  talk  of  "  cool-headed 
statesmen  "  and  "  sentimental  rhetoricians  "  again  I 
shall  always  call  to  mind  that  in  taking  stock  of  English 
opinion  at  this  crisis  the  "  sentimental  rhetorician  "  was 
right  and  the  cool-headed  statesmen  were  wrong.  It  is 
just  as  with  political  sentiment  itself.  The  Tories  hate 
it,  and  the  Whigs  scorn  it  ;  and  yet  the  great  force 
which  has  transformed  Europe,  which  has  been  the 
secret  of  its  history  ever  since  1815,  is  a  political 
"  sentiment  "  —  that  of  Nationality. 

The  really  notable  thing  about  the  elections  is  the 
political  "  cleavage  "  they  denote.  It  will  be  an  ill  day 
when,  as  in  France,  our  political  lines  of  division  coincide 
with  our  social  and  religious  lines.  Yet  that  is  what 
this  election  points  to.  Liberalism  is  becoming  more 
and  more  coincident  with  Nonconformity  ;  it  is  be- 
coming less  and  less  common  among  men  of  the  higher 
social  class.  The  bulk  of  the  nobles  and  the  gentry, 
almost  all  the  parsons,  the  bulk  of  the  lawyers,  I  fear 
an  increasing  number  of  doctors,  are  all  Conservative. 
I  see  that  Liberals  have  an  intellectual  work  to  do  as 
well  as  a  directly  political.  I  mean  that  they  must 
convert  the  upper  classes  as  well  as  organise  the  lower. 


iv  LAST  YEARS  481 

And  this  perhaps  may  force  on  us  soon  a  higher  and 
a  more  intelligent  Liberalism  than  we  have  now.  Any- 
how, we  are  back  in  days  of  reality  and  not  of  impostors, 
and  we  shall  see  Englishmen  interested  in  things  they 
do  know,  in  home  questions,  and  not  pretending  to  be 
wild  about  things  they  don't  know  ;  and  those  are 
foreign  questions.  For  the  last  few  years  I  have  always 
stopped  the  mouths  of  Jingoes  by  taking  them  at  once 
into  the  geography  of  Central  Asia  ! 

J.  R.  GREEN. 


To  E.  A.  Freeman 

HOTEL  DE  LA  VILLE  DE  LYON,  FONTAINEBLEAU, 
May  8,  1882. 

[Villele  was  the  reactionary  minister  of  Charles  X. 
from  1825  to  1827.  Freeman  was  on  a  Commission 
of  Inquiry  into  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts.] 

I  cannot  set  foot  in  England,  dear  Freeman,  without 
a  word  of  gratitude  for  your  review.  What  you  say 
of  the  close  of  the  book  is  quite  true.  I  have  been 
trying  to  remedy  its  defects  by  drawing  up  a  long 
picture  of  the  developement  political  and  social  of  the 
country  from  Eadwine  to  Offa's  day,  which  may  serve 
as  the  close  of  the  volume  in  a  new  edition,  or  which  I 
may  use  to  begin  another  volume  if  I  write  one.  But 
that,  in  spite  of  Macmillan's  announcements,  is  still  a 
big  "If."  The  truth  is  the  subject  tempts  me  less  and 
less  the  more  I  work  at  it.  The  more  I  study  the  two 
centuries  before  Ecgberht,  the  more  I  can  see  the  old 
free  constitution  crushed  out  by  the  political  consolida- 
tion, the  old  Folk-moot  dying  with  the  folk  themselves 
into  local  shire  and  shire-moot ;  and  by  the  extinction 
of  the  old  j^Etheling  class  and  the  upgrowth  of  the  big 
kingdoms  transformed  into  a  small  royal  council.  After 
Ecgberht  things  only  grew  worse  ;  and  closer  study  of 
the  law  and  administrative  acts  convinces  me  that  the 
conquest  was  continuous  from  Hengest  to  William, 

2  i 


482  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN  PART 

that  in  spite  of  all  the  West  Saxon  brag  the  Danelagh 
remained  virtually  independent  even  from  ^Elfred  to 
Edward's  day,  that  the  successes  of  those  "  glorious  " 
and  "  unconquered  "  gentlemen  only  went  on  so  long 
as  the  Northern  peoples  were  busy  at  home,  and  that 
when  the  kingdoms  there  were  really  formed  Sweyn 
could  take  up  the  work  of  conquest  just  where  it  had 
stopped  at  the  Frith  of  Wedmore,  and  finish  the  job 
with  the  Danelagh  to  back  him.  As  I  read  it  the 
story  isn't  a  pretty  one,  and  the  people  are  not  pretty 
people  to  write  about. 

However  you  will  say  this  only  proves  that  I  am 
still  a  poor  weak  body,  apt  to  take  "  blue "  views  of 
things  past  or  present.  And  no  doubt  this  is  in  some- 
wise true.  Mentone  and  its  glorious  winter  has  done 
me  good  in  more  than  one  way,  but  I  am  still  weak  in 
body,  unable  to  walk  much,  tired  with  a  little  sitting 
up  or  a  good  talk,  and  I  fear  there  is  small  radical 
improvement  in  the  state  of  my  lung  which  is  the  root 
of  all  the  evil.  There  is  nothing  for  it  but  patience 
and  eood  humour  ;  but  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  feel 

O  7 

one's  brain  as  active  as  ever  and  yet  doomed  to  inaction 
from  being  chained  to  this  "  body  of  death,"  as  Paul 
called  it  long  ago.  What  has  cheered  me  most  under 
it  has  been  the  reception  of  the  "  Making."  I  don't 
mean  its  sale  and  the  praise  of  it,  but  the  cessation  at 
last  of  that  attempt,  which  has  been  so  steadily  carried 
on  for  the  last  ten  years,  to  drum  me  out  of  the  world 
of  historical  scholars  and  set  me  among  the  "picturesque 
compilers."  It  cost  me  many  a  bitter  hour,  but  I 
suppose  it  is  over  now.  .  .  . 

I  can  hardly  write  of  other  matters  for  thinking  of 
the  terrible  news  of  this  morning — the  murders  of  Lord 
Frederick  Cavendish  and  Mr.  Burke.  The  first  I 
have  met  and  talked  to  more  than  once  ;  and  his  quiet, 
kindly  nature  makes  the  thought  of  such  a  doom  yet 
more  horrible.  What  is  worse,  I  fear  the  murderers 
will  succeed  in  their  real  end, — that  England  will  be 
panic-struck  and  call  for  "  strong  measures  "  and  most 


iv  LAST  YEARS  483 

probably  a  new  ministry.  Still  I  have  a  lingering  hope 
that  people  may  keep  their  heads,  and  ask  who  did  the 
deed  and  why?  .  .  .  Our  course  (hard  as  it  is) 
is  plain — to  hold  to  the  new  policy  in  spite  of  this 
murder,  or  rather  all  the  more  in  consequence  of  it.  ... 
But  in  the  presence  of  popular  passion  statesmanship 
is  helpless  ;  and  I  fear  Gladstone  will  fall  as  Chateau- 
briand said  Villele  fell — il  a  glisse  dans  le  sang. 

Good-bye,  dear  Freeman.  I  hope  your  work  on 
Church  Rags  will  bring  you  soon  to  London,  and  let 
me  see  you.  Till  then,  with  kindest  regards  from  my 
wife  —  secretary,  librarian,  translator. — I  am  affec- 
tionately yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 

To  Humphry  Ward 
[Probably  his  last  letter.     About  January  15,  1883.] 

I  need  not  tell  you,  dear  Humphry,  what  your 
warm-hearted  letter  was  to  me.  It  came  at  a  moment 
of  extreme  depression,  and  did  me  more  good  than  all 
the  doctors.  Whatever  my  unruly  tongue  may  say  or 
do,  my  love  for  those  I  love  never  falters,  and  I  live  in 
their  love  for  me. 

I  am  better  and  stronger,  but  progress  is  so  slow 
and  broken  that  I  can't  feel  much  of  the  betterness. 
It  worries  me  above  all  that  I  have  so  little  vigour  for 
the  reconstruction  of  my  book,  which  I  have  resolved 
on  and  begun  ;  helped  much  by  some  good  historical 
talks  with  Bryce  and  Lord  Acton.  Creighton's  is  a 
remarkable  book,  both  in  its  learning  and  its  vigour 
of  execution  ;  but  it  would  have  been  better  had  he 
written  in  his  own  person  and  not  in  the  person  of  old 
Ranke.  "  A  poor  thing,  sir,  but  my  own,"  is  true  of 
literature  above  all.  Still  the  book  shows  great  power, 
and  sets  Creighton  among  real  historians. 

Love  to  dear  M.  and  the  children. — Affectionately 
yours,  J.  R.  GREEN. 


APPENDIX 


THE  LIFE  EVERLASTING 

A  SERMON  preached  on  Sunday,  July  13,  1862,  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Barnabas,  King's  Square,  London, 
by  the  Rev.  J.  R.  GREEN,  M.A.,  in  memory  of 
JANE,  wife  of  the  Rev.  HENRY  WARD,  M.A., 
incumbent,  obiit  July  2,  1862,  aged  forty-two 
years. 

A  PRAYER 

Almighty  God,  with  whom  do  live  the  spirits  of  them  that  de- 
part hence  in  the  Lord,  and  with  whom  the  souls  of  the  faithful 
after  they  are  delivered  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh  are  in  joy  and 
felicity  ;  we  give  Thee  hearty  thanks  that  it  hath  pleased  Thee  to 
deliver  this  our  sister  out  of  the  miseries  of  this  sinful  world,  be- 
seeching Thee  that  it  may  please  Thee  of  Thy  gracious  goodness 
shortly  to  accomplish  the  number  of  Thine  elect  and  to  hasten  Thy 
kingdom,  that  we  with  all  those  that  are  departed  in  the  true  faith 
of  Thy  holy  name  may  have  our  perfect  consummation  and  bliss, 
both  in  body  and  soul,  in  Thy  eternal  and  everlasting  glory  ;  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

"  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto  life,  because  we 
love  the  brethren." — I  JOHN  iii.  14. 

EIGHT  years  ago  the  bravest  of  England's  sons  marched 
past  their  Queen  to  the  war.  "  To  how  many," — the 
question  came  sadly  back  when  the  shouts  of  the  people 
were  hushed,  and  the  joyous  music  had  died  away, — 
"  to  how  many  had  that  royal  hand  waved  a  last  fare- 
well ? "  Day  after  day  a  mightier  host  rolls  past  the 
Christian  preacher  to  a  surer  doom  ;  no  question  rises 


486  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          APPX. 

as  they  pass,  careless  and  grave,  beauty,  and  wit,  and 
fame,  the  unknown,  the  sordid,  the  commonplace,  old 
and  young,  foe  and  friend  ;  to  each,  to  all,  the  preacher 
bids  farewell ;  he  too  descends  to  march  with  them,  and 
joins  their  solemn  progress  to  the  grave. 

It  is  the  grave  that  parts  the  one  from  the  other  the 
two  hosts  that  march  mingled  in  that  vast  company  ; 
Death  himself  is  the  judge  who  severs  the  world's  army 
from  the  army  of  God.  The  one  has  ended  its  course  ; 
this  earthly  life,  bounded  by  the  cradle  and  the  tomb,  is 
its  all,  and  death  is  the  end  of  it ;  the  other  sees  in 
these  few  chequered  years  but  a  fragment  of  existence, 
of  a  Being  that  looks  back  for  its  fount  to  a  love  before 
time  began,  and  forward  for  its  future  to  a  life  that  shall 
endure  when  time  and  the  things  of  time  shall  pass  away. 

To  the  first  it  is  not  I  that  speak  to-day,  it  is  a 
greater  than  I.  One  night  in  the  year,  says  the  Breton 
peasant,  the  inhabitants  of  the  countless  tombs  that  strew 
the  field  of  Carnac,  rise  from  their  graves  and  flit  in 
ghostly  troops  across  the  plain,  to  the  little  chapel  from 
whose  pulpit  Death  in  the  garb  of  a  preacher  preaches 
his  sermon  to  the  dead.  Listen,  ye  dead  of  to-day  ; 
listen,  ye  to  whom  this  world  is  all ;  listen  to  the 
preacher  Death.  From  this  grave  which  we  contem- 
plate he  points  to  the  life  which  it  ends  ;  look  where 
you  will,  it  is  not  life  but  death  ;  look  where  you  may, 
man,  traversing  as  his  all  that  space  between  the  cradle 
and  the  tomb,  "walketh  in  a  vain  shadow,  and  dis- 
quieteth  himself  in  vain."  Everywhere  is  the  incom- 
pleteness of  Death.  The  secrets  of  the  wisest  die  with 
the  brain  that  wove  them  ;  the  hopes  of  the  noblest 
sleep  with  the  heart  that  conceived  them  ;  the  riches  of 
the  meanest  drop  from  the  hand  that  gathered  them. 
All  is  limited,  broken,  fragmentary  ;  a  little  earth  parts 
us  from  the  friend  that  we  loved,  ere  we  had  tasted  but 
the  first  sweetness  of  friendship  ;  and  the  home  that  we 
gather  around  us  breaks  into  vacant  seats  and  memories 
which  linger  in  closets  of  the  heart  that  we  dare  not 
open.  Life,  that  ends  in  Death,  is  but  one  long  disen- 


APPX.  A  SERMON  487 

chantment,  a  riddle  without  meaning,  a  maze  without  a 
plan,  where  sitting  amid  the  ruins  of  aim,  and  hope,  and 
love,  in  the  kingdom  of  Death,  man  reads  graven  on 
every  monument  of  his  rule,  the  sermon  of  that  terrible 
preacher,  "  Vanity  of  Vanities  !  all  is  Vanity  !  " 

Triumph,  O  Grave,  over  the  world,  and  the  world's 
children  !  but  where  is  thy  victory  over  the  children  of 
God  ?  He  who  but  a  few  months  since  stood  knocking 
at  the  gate  of  kings,  knocks  now  at  our  own.  Enter, 
O  Death,  take  that  is  thine,  the  still,  passionless  face,  the 
cold,  motionless  form.  But  she  whom  it  enshrined  is 
the  charge  of  a  stronger  than  thou  ;  she  hath  passed 
from  Death  unto  life  ;  she  is  not  here,  she  is  risen. 
For  if  indeed  to  the  dead  in  sins,  the  death  of  the  body 
is  the  seal  and  sacrament  of  the  death  of  the  soul,  to 
them  that  have  risen  with  Christ,  it  is  but  the  perfect- 
ing of  their  resurrection,  but  the  last  victory  over  the 
sin  that  yet  clung  to  and  harrassed  its  conqueror.  And 
so  it  is  that  for  the  redeemed  while  yet  on  earth,  the 
contemplation  of  Death  passes  evermore  into  a  solemn 
longing  for  the  life  that  it  sets  free.  For  Death  is  to 
them  but  the  angel  at  whose  touch  the  world's  subtle 
veil  is  rent  to  reveal  an  eternity  of  which  this  earthly 
life  is  but  a  fragment,  the  Heavens  open,  and  lo  !  Christ 
sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God  ;  for  them  too  Death  is 
a  preacher  to  tell  how,  in  that  eternity,  a  love  incom- 
prehensible created  and  chose  for  eternal  bliss  the  soul 
that  it  had  made ;  a  love  patient  with  the  rebel,  seeking 
after  the  lost,  winning  back  the  estranged  ;  a  love  to 
reveal  which  to  man  the  only  begotten  leaves  the  Throne 
of  His  Father,  conquers  in  dying  the  death  of  sin,  and 
in  rising  again  gives  man  the  life  eternal.  The  life  that 
He  gives  is  His  own  ;  the  soul  that  has  groped  its  way 
to  the  foot  of  the  Cross  becomes  one  with  Him  that 
hangeth  thereon  ;  He  dwells  in  the  redeemed  ;  of  His 
fulness  they  receive ;  He  gives  them  the  spirit  of  adop- 
tion and  shares  with  them  His  Sonship  ;  He  prays 
but  that  the  love  wherewith  the  Father  loves  Him  may 
be  in  them,  that  they  may  be  one  in  His  unity  with 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          APPX. 

the  Father,  heirs  with  Him  of  the  Divine  kingdom, 
partakers  of  the  Divine  Nature. 

The  life  then  of  the  Christian  becomes  but  the  life 
of  Christ ;  the  problems  of  a  narrower  existence  vanish 
with  the  shadow  of  its  hopes  and  fears  ;  old  things  have 
passed  away,  and  a  new  life,  eternal  as  the  Lord  from 
whom  it  springs  ;  a  life,  in  the  light  of  whose  eternity 
we  see  this  passing  life  to  be  but  death,  fills  the  heart  of 
the  Christian.  It  is  a  life  hid  from  the  world's  blind 
scrutiny,  with  Christ  in  God.  There  in  ever-deepening 
communion  with  the  love  that  passeth  understanding, 
struggling  and  suffering  in  the  sufferings  of  its  Lord, 
bearing  His  Cross,  enduring  oftentimes  His  shame, 
entering  through  Cross  and  shame  more  and  more  into 
the  mind  of  its  Christ ;  there  beneath  the  everlasting 
wings,  and  in  the  realized  presence  of  God,  the  soul  of 
the  redeemed  marches  in  the  strength  of  his  grace  from 
victory  to  victory  over  the  sin  that  yet  clings  to  it,  rises 
daily  with  Christ  to  nobler  self-conquest  and  a  higher 
life,  and  waits  patiently  for  the  death  of  the  body  to 
enter  into  the  perfect  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 
Nor  is  it  only  in  this  onward  progress,  these  longings 
after  God,  that  Christ  is  the  life  of  the  Christian  soul. 
The  life  that  rises  evermore  with  Him  in  His  love  of 
God,  falls  evermore  back  with  Him  to  earth  in  His  love 
of  man.  Our  very  affections  for  one  another,  the 
natural  ties  that  link  brother  to  brother,  friend  to  friend, 
become  deepened,  widened,  transfigured,  in  the  glory  of 
His  love,  "  as  I  have  loved  you,  so  do  ye  also  love  one 
another."  Nay,  more  ;  to  these  sanctified  affections  He 
has  given  His  own  especial  office,  they  become  judges 
of  the  soul ;  "he  that  loveth  not  his  brother  abideth  in 
death "  ;  "we  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death 
unto  life  because  we  love  the  brethren." 

It  is  from  the  memory  of  such  a  double  life  as  this, 
a  life  so  quickened,  so  hallowed,  so  hid  in  God,  that  I 
would  draw  to-day  some  faint  consolation  for  the  bitter 
grief  of  a  bereaved  husband,  the  tears  of  a  desolated 
home.  Sad  privilege  of  Death,  that  for  the  first  time 


APPX.  A  SERMON  489 

reveals  to  us  the  greatness  that  is  gone !  We  move 
among  the  pleasant  fields,  and  catch  broken  glimpses 
of  beauty  down  glade  and  avenue,  but  not  till  we  pause 
on  the  hill-top  for  a  last  gaze  on  the  scene  that  we  are 
quitting  for  ever,  does  it  burst  on  us  in  its  complete- 
ness, in  its  harmony.  And  yet,  when  I  would  recall 
"  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead  "  it  is  this  very 
unity  and  completeness  that  baffles  me.  Little  by 
little  harmonious  characters  break  upon  us  in  memories 
of  patience  and  love,  of  consolation  and  encourage- 
ment ;  but  the  moment  we  would  grasp  them  we  fall 
back  perplexed  before  that  inexplicable  contrast  of  a 
serene  and  holy  calm  with  quick  sensibilities,  where  as 
we  search  emotions  seem  ever  more  delicate  and  peace 
more  deep.  And  here,  if  anywhere,  were  fused  in  an 
admirable  unity  qualities  and  gifts  the  most  various 
and  opposed.  Around  an  intellect  singularly  broad 
and  massive,  flickered  the  gentler  lights  of  a  taste 
subtle,  fastidious,  and  refined ;  the  imagination  that 
soared  without  an  effort  to  the  noblest  spheres  of 
genius  or  inspiration,  or  played  with  a  graceful  flexi- 
bility over  the  pathetic  and  the  fanciful,  co-existed  with 
a  love  of  order,  a  natural  faculty  for  organisation,  a 
mind  eminently  practical.  So,  too,  a  quick  and  acute 
apprehension,  a  rare  versatility  and  aptitude  for  the 
appreciation  of  new  ideas,  a  singular  freshness  and 
vigour  of  thought  that  loved  to  catch  even  from  a 
distance  a  glimpse  of  the  march  of  knowledge,  or  to 
investigate  the  social  and  religious  problems  of  the 
hour,  submitted  in  her  to  the  sway  of  a  quiet  common 
sense,  of  a  judgment  passionless  and  calm.  For  hers 
was  a  mind  of  no  common  order,  a  rare  nature,  and  a 
rarer  grace.  Little  indeed  was  revealed  to  the  outer 
world  save  a  temper  serene  and  self-contained,  a  simple 
unaffected  courtesy,  a  wise  and  steady  will ;  over  all, 
like  the  silver  haze  of  dawn,  brooded  the  reserve  of  a 
gentle  melancholy,  broken  indeed  by  gleams  of  child- 
like playfulness,  a  sunny  humour  that  ever  ranged  within 
the  bounds  of  reverence  and  love,  the  natural  blitheness 


490  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          APPX. 

of  a  heart  chastened  but  not  darkened  by  the  sad 
discipline  of  her  life.  It  was  a  joyousness  that  never 
failed  to  meet  the  glad  influences  of  external  nature ; 
there,  like  the  Patriarchs  of  old,  she  loved  to  commune 
with  her  God  ;  through  field  and  copse  she  moved  as 
in  her  Father's  home,  and  lulled  her  cares  with  the 
sweet  songs  that  from  every  tree  discoursed  to  her  of 
her  Father's  love.1  For  beneath  the  serene  calm  of  the 
outer  surface  lay  a  heart  on  which  cares  bore  heavily,  a 
heart  sensitive  to  misunderstanding  and  wrong,  living 
in  the  very  life  of  those  she  loved,  rejoicing  in  their 
joy,  grieving  in  their  grief.  Hers  was  a  matchless 
tenderness,  yet  it  was  the  tenderness  not  of  a  weak 
nature  but  of  a  strong  ;  a  tenderness  that  blended  with 
quick  decision,  great  force  of  will,  unflinching  steadi- 
ness of  purpose,  a  noble  courage,  a  nobler  endurance. 
Nobleness  was  the  characteristic  of  her  life,  the  noble- 
ness of  high  longings,  of  a  sublime  reaching  forward  to 
all  that  was  lofty  and  true,  an  instinctive  scorn  for  all 
that  was  base  and  mean,  a  quiet  indifference  to  the 
pettiness  of  the  world's  common  converse,  a  resolute 
aversion  for  the  trivial  gossip  that  eats  away  truthfulness 
and  charity. 

It  was  the  nobleness  of  one  who  lived  as  in  the  very 
presence  of  God,  whose  being  was  but  one  deep  com- 
munion with  the  Invisible.  Who  but  the  Spirit  of 
God  knows  the  depths  of  the  souls  of  his  own  ?  The 
world  sneers  or  wonders  at  its  own  fancies  and  ideals, 
not  at  the  real  lives  that  God  keepeth  in  His  Taber- 
nacle from  the  strife  of  tongues.  Even  earthly  affection 
can  but  stand  afar  off  and  guess  from  broken  gleams 
and  stray  flashes  at  the  glory  of  the  light  within,  yet 
none  but  felt  that  in  this  realisation  of  God's  presence 
Jay  the  secret  of  her  faith,  a  faith  so  simple,  so  com- 
plete, that  some  viewing  it  from  a  distance  deemed 

1  "It  is  marvellous  the  joy  I  feel  simply  from  the  exhilarating  influence  of 
nature  around  me.  The  simplest  wild  flowers  suggest  happy  thoughts  of  the 
Invisible  Hand  which  clothed  them  with  their  grace  and  loveliness,  and  the  birds 
with  their  warbling  melodies  and  blithe  free  movements  discourse  to  me  of  God 
the  Father  and  lull  many  an  anxious  care." — (From  a  Letter  to  a  Friend.) 


APPX.  A  SERMON  491 

it  fatalism.  But  fatalism  is  the  mere  blind  submission 
to  an  irresistible  power,  and  hers  was  a  surrender 
without  reserve,  a  frank  self-abandonment  to  a  wisdom 
which  she  knew  was  love.  With  that  wisdom  she 
communed  in  meditation  and  prayer,  its  voice  was  her 
supreme  law.  She  was  "  a  wonderful  Bible  reader "  ; 
no  memories  recall  her  more  vividly  than  those  that 
group  themselves  round  her  favourite  portions  of  Holy 
Writ,  the  Psalms  and  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  So 
resting  upon  God  she  marched  heavenward  with  a 
step  unfaltering  and  sublime.  But  the  light  that 
revealed  her  strength  revealed  also  her  weakness,  it 
was  a  light  not  of  faith  only  but  of  the  humility  in 
which  faith  must  have  its  root.  She  learnt  the  lesson 
of  lowliness  in  the  school  of  the  Cross.  Early  to  her 
came  the  bidding  that  comes  soon  or  late  to  all,  "  take 
up  thy  Cross,  and  follow  me."  Pressed  even  in  child- 
hood with  the  anxieties  of  riper  years ;  at  the  first 
blush  of  womanhood  a  wife  and  mother  ;  bereavement 
leaving  graves  here  and  there  along  her  path,  and  yet 
hardly  lightening  the  oppressive  burthen  of  her  cares,1 — 
such  a  life  drank  deep  of  the  bitterness  of  the  Cross,  and 
it  drank  deeply  of  its  consolations.  Beneath  its  load  she 
learnt  to  know  the  depth  and  tenderness  of  the  love  that 
laid  it  on  her  ;  "  touched  in  its  tenderest  part,  troubled 
in  its  sweetest  and  purest  affections,  that  soul,  unable 
to  support  itself,  escapes  from  its  weakness  and  goes  to 
God  "  ;  the  words  of  her  death-bed  unfold  the  mystery 
of  her  life.  "  O,  the  love  of  God  !  what  a  large-hearted 
love  is  the  love  of  God,  to  suffer  me  to  love  Him  so." 

The  soul  that  thus  soared  with  its  Lord  to  the  love 
of  heaven  fell  with  Him  to  earth  to  become  the 
servant  of  all.  A  natural  expansiveness  of  heart,  an 
innate  capacity  for  affection  was  glorified  and  trans- 
figured into  the  charity  that  is  of  God.  She  moved 

1  She  had  lost  five  children  ;  four  were  taken  in  comparative  infancy, — and  for 
them  her  tears  were  dried  and  her  heart  was  comforted.  But  her  eldest  and  most 
treasured  child  reached  seventeen  years  before  she  was  taken  away ;  and  this  was 
the  cloud  which  more  or  less  shrouded  the  six  remaining  years  of  the  mother's 
life.— H.  W. 


492  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          APPX. 

among  her  fellows,  calm,  noble,  serene  ;  but  her  noble- 
ness blended  with  a  tenderness  for  all  around  her, 
worthy  of  the  Friend  of  the  Magdalene.  She  weighed 
their  embarrassments,  their  temptations,  she  drew  from 
her  own  failings  extenuation  of  their  faults  ;  with  a 
noble  humility  she  even  exaggerated  her  own  weakness 
to  palliate  their  infirmity.  Her  victories  were  victories 
of  patience  ;  petulance  and  provocation  fell  abashed 
before  the  sweet  charity  of  her  silence.  Something  of 
that  large-heartedness  which  she  adored  in  God,  God 
had  bestowed  upon  her ;  room  was  found  in  that 
large  warm  heart  for  all,  from  the  friend  of  her  closest 
converse  to  the  poor  women,  so  lately  gathered  round 
her,1  who  hung  tearfully  on  the  varying  rumours  which 
reached  them  from  that  bed  of  death.  But  wide  as 
was  her  affection  it  centred  in  her  home.  Home  is 
the  world  of  woman,  nor  need  she  sigh  like  the  victor 
of  old  for  other  worlds  to  conquer.  Souls,  destined 
for  immortality,  gather  round  the  table  and  the  hearth 
at  a  time  when  souls  are  most  impressible  for  good  or 
ill,  and  she  to  whom  each  instinctively  clings  has 
among  them  her  Apostleship.  Nor  is  that  all ;  our 
social  needs  gather  another  circle  round  this  inner  one, 
to  take  from  it  its  character  and  impression.  Still, 
peaceful,  deep-hearted,  speaking  little,  bearing  much, 
loving  more,  she  whom  we  mourn  laboured  among 
both  in  the  very  spirit  of  an  Apostle.  The  tears  of 
her  domestics  fell  not  so  much  for  the  mistress,  con- 
siderate and  gentle  even  when  most  firm,  as  for  the 
wisest  of  guides,  the  truest  and  most  patient  of  friends. 
Nor  has  the  husband  whom  she  has  left,  only  to  learn 
in  the  absence  of  a  thousand  little  attentions,  too  un- 
obtrusive to  be  noted  till  lost,  the  care  and  assiduity 
of  her  affection  ;  days  of  loneliness  must  recall  the 
calm  and  judicious  counseller,  the  noble-hearted  partner 
of  his  cares,  the  great  and  simple  soul  that  in  the 

1  In  her  "  Mothers'  Meetings,"  held  once  a  fortnight  for  the  poor  married 
women  of  the  parish,  some  of  whom  long  since  declared  that  they  looked  forward 
to  that  evening  as  the  happiest  of  their  existence,  and  that  as  soon  at  one  meeting 
was  over  they  counted  the  days  to  the  next. 


APPX.  A  SERMON  493 

daily  ministrations  of  his  life  was  ever  raising,  ever 
supporting,  ever  lifting  him  heavenward.  But  you, 
children  of  her  love,  in  whose  young  hearts  must  live 
for  ever  the  tearful  memories  of  the  days  that  are 
gone  ;  you,  cradled  in  her  tears  and  in  her  prayers, 
environed  evermore  by  a  tenderness  too  unselfish  for 
weakness,  gather  up,  while  they  are  still  fresh  in  your 
ears,  those  golden  words,  those  lessons  of  wisdom,  of 
piety,  of  benevolence,  of  true  greatness  which  fell  from 
that  rich  one's  table  ;  gather  up  those  hourly  proofs 
of  an  unwearied  love,  of  patience,  of  unselfishness 
which  ever  illustrated  the  lessons  which  she  taught. 
For  she  lured  you  towards  heaven  by  going  before  ; 
she  tempted  you  to  the  love  of  piety  by  showing  it 
lovely  in  herself;  she  led  you  through  daily  instances 
of  her  own  self-sacrifice  upward  to  the  self-sacrifice 
of  her  Lord. 

Meet  and  right  it  is  to  bow  before  the  inscrutable 
wisdom  that  has  interrupted  thus  a  work  ended  with 
none  of  her  children,  with  most  hardly  begun.  Young 
and  old,  they  rest  alike  beneath  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  ;  and  faith  brings  the  little  children  to  their  Lord 
that,  as  of  old,  He  may  take  them  up  in  His  arms, 
lay  His  hands  upon  them,  and  bless  them.  Faith 
echoes  for  us  the  words  that  comforted  the  mother  of 
Augustine, — "  the  children  of  so  many  tears  cannot  be 
lost." 

Faith  such  as  this  was  hers  who  now  drinks  of  the 
fulness  of  that  love  to  which  she  trusted  all.  Death 
came  as  no  strange  visitant  to  one  who  stood  on  the 
very  verge  of  Time  looking  out  into  eternity.  Vainly 
we  linger  by  the  grave  of  our  blind  desires,  that  in  the 
after-time  love  might  render  back  some  recompense  for 
love,  that 

All  the  train  of  bounteous  hours, 

Might  lead  by  paths  of  growing  powers 

To  reverence,  and  the  silver  hair. 

Vainly  we  linger  by  that  grave  which  is  but  the  scene 
of  her  latest  triumph,  where  the  life   that  cannot  die 


494  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN         APPX. 

laid  aside  for  ever  the  last  vestiges  of  mortality.  Freed 
from  the  sensual  fetters  that  clogged  its  heavenly 
aspirations,  the  soul  sprang  thence  to  the  fulness  of 
the  life  in  Christ,  to  a  growth  and  development  in 
harmony  with  the  Divine  laws  whose  sway  had  hitherto 
been  partial  and  interrupted.  The  stream,  that  while 
a  rivulet,  chafed  and  bent  before  a  thousand  obstacles, 
now  deepened  to  a  mighty  flood,  sweeps  silently  to  the 
sea.  A  course  never  ceasing, — a  deepening  and  widen- 
ing that  never  ends  !  The  cry  of  the  Church  trium- 
phant is  the  cry  of  the  Church  militant,  "  lift  us  up 
for  ever."  Never  perfect,  the  soul  is  ever  being 
perfected  ;  never  God,  it  is  ever  drawing  nearer  to  the 
Divine  nature  ;  never  exhausting  the  love  of  Christ,  it 
is  ever  knowing  more  of  it,  ever  discovering  in  it  fresh 
depths  and  heights.  It  is  a  constant  growth,  a  vivid 
activity ;  no  passive  rest  like  the  heaven  of  the 
Moslem,  but  an  activity  which  is  rest,  because  perfect 
love  hath  cast  out  fear  whether  of  receding  to  the 
past,  or  of  failure  in  the  future.  Fear  and  sorrow  have 
no  place  in  the  eternal  joy.  She  who  hath  risen,  who 
riseth  evermore  to  higher  knowledge  and  higher  love, 
and  nobler  praise,  hath  "  obtained  joy  and  gladness, 
and  sorrow  and  sighing  have  fled  away."  The  Cross 
has  become  the  Crown  ;  and  for  the  tears  and  prayers 
of  her  earthly  pilgrimage  her  voice  springs  evermore 
from  the  sabbath  of  her  rest  to  mingle  with  the  music 
of  golden  harps,  and  the  praise  that,  like  the  noise  of 
mighty  waters,  rolls  evermore  around  the  throne  of  the 
Lamb. 

And  we,  why  stand  we  thus  gazing  up  into  heaven  ? 
life  grants  but  a  short  respite  for  sorrow ;  even  now 
it  calls  us  hence.  By  memories  that  can  never  die, 
the  dead  in  Christ  still  surround  us  with  ministries  of 
the  love  that  seems  to  have  passed  away.  Those 
spirit  hands  that  reach  from  forth  the  veil  of  the 
Holiest  lift  up  the  hands  that  grasp  them,  and  the 
heart  that  still  throbs  at  their  touch.  Our  loves,  our 
friendships  here  have  a  tinge  of  earthly  passion,  of 


APPX.  A  SERMON  495 

selfishness,  that  sullies  their  nobleness.  But  no  touch 
of  self  or  passion  mingles  with  our  love  for  the  dead. 
Cherish  the  love  of  the  dead.  Welcome  the  com- 
panionship of  the  dead.  We,  who  hushed  the  ignoble 
word  upon  our  lips  from  reverence  for  the  nobleness 
beside  us, — will  not  that  reverence  for  eyes  which  now 
read  our  hearts  quench  the  ignoble  thought  that  rises 
there  ?  Henceforth  we  live  in  the  communion  and 
fellowship  of  the  Saints.  They  are  beside  us,  they 
are  among  us — those  holy  ones  whom  we  mourn — to 
comfort,  to  lift  us  up  for  ever  to  the  heaven  in  which 
they  dwell.  Turn  then  to  the  life  that  this  presence 
hallows,  O  bereaved  children  !  O  desolate  spouse  ! 
Prayer  shall  rise  for  you  from  lips  unworthy  as  ours, 
that  upon  you  may  descend  the  consolations  of  Him 
"  who  comforteth  us  in  all  our  afflictions," — prayer  for 
you,  and  for  ourselves  also,  that  in  our  hearts  may 
abide  that  divine  peacefulness,  that  lowliness,  that  un- 
selfishness, which  in  her  threw  a  glory  over  the 
commonest  details  of  her  daily  life ;  above  all,  that 
we  too  may  drink  of  that  Divine  charity  that  leaves 
us  now  mourners,  but  mourners  of  a  hope  that  cannot 
fail,  for  "  we  know  that  she  hath  passed  from  Death 
unto  Life,  because  she  loved  the  brethren." 


THE  WORKS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 

OXFORD  DURING  THE  LAST  CENTURY.  Being  Two  Series  of 
Papers  published  in  the  "  Oxford  Chronicle  and  Berks  and  Bucks 
Gazette"  during  the  year  1859.  Oxford,  Slatter  and  Rose,  1859. 
4to. 

The  First  Series  is  not  by  Green.     The  Second  Series  occupies 

PP-  35-!3i- 

Reprinted  with  other  papers  as  Oxford  Studies,  1859. 
Issued  as  a  Publication  of  the  Oxford  Historical  Society,  and 
also  by  Macmillan  and  Company  in  the  "Eversley  Series,"  1901. 

**#  All  the  later  works  were  published  by  Messrs.  Macmillan  and  Company. 

I.  A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE   ENGLISH   PEOPLE.      Pp.  xl.  847, 
5  maps.     Crown  8vo.     8s.  6d. 

First  Edition  printed  in  1874 ;  reprinted  January  (twice), 
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1876  with  corrections;  April,  November  1877;  March,  August 
1878  ;  1880  with  slight  corrections  ;  1 88 1  with  considerable 
corrections  ;  1882,  1884,  1885,  with  corrections  ;  1886  with 
corrections. 

Second  Edition,  Revised,  printed  in  1887  ;  reprinted  1889,  1891, 
1894,  1895,  1899. 

An  Edition  with  Tables  and  an  Analysis,  by  C.  W.  A.  Tait,  in 
four  parts.  Crown  8vo.  Parts  I.,  II.,  and  III.,  1889  ;  Part  IV., 
1890. 

Illustrated  Edition.  Edited  by  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green  and  Miss 
Kate  Norgate. 

First  published  in  40  is.  monthly  parts,  commencing  September 
1891  ;  afterwards  in  4  vols.  485.  per  set,  December  1894;  and 
in  3  vols.  405.  per  set.  1898. 

II.  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     8vo.     i6s. 
Vol.1,  printed  1877;  reprinted  1877,  1881,  1885,  1890. 

Vol.  II.  printed  1878  ;  reprinted  1880  with  slight  corrections  ; 

1885,  1890. 

Vol.  III.  printed  1879  ;  reprinted  1882,  1886,  1891. 

Vol.  IV.  printed  1880  ;  reprinted  1883  with  slight  corrections  ; 

1886,  1893. 

2  K 


498  LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 

An  Edition  in  eight  volumes,  Globe  8vo.  55.  each.  (Eversley 
Series.)  Printed  1895-96. 

III.  THE  MAKING  OF  ENGLAND. 

First  Edition  8vo.  Pp.  xxviii.  448,  and  I  map,  January  1882  ; 
Second  Edition,  December  1882  ;  Third  Edition,  1885  ;  Fourth 
Edition.  2  vols.  Globe  8vo.  (Eversley  Series),  1897;  reprinted 
in  1900. 

IV.  THE  CONQUEST  OF  ENGLAND.     With  Portrait  and  Maps. 
First  Edition  8vo.     Pp.  xxxvi.  636,  1883  ;  Second  Edition  8vo, 

1884;    Third   Edition.     2  vols.      Globe    8vo.     (Eversley  Series.) 
Printed  in  1899. 

V.  STRAY  STUDIES  FROM  ENGLAND  AND  ITALY. 

First  Edition.     Extra  Crown  8vo.     8s.  6d.     Printed  1876. 
Second  Edition.     Globe  8vo.     55.     (Eversley  Series.)     Printed 
1892. 

VI.  READINGS  FROM  ENGLISH  HISTORY.     Selected  and  Edited  by 
John  Richard  Green.     In  Three   Parts.     Globe  8vo.     Each  Part 
is.  6d. 

Part  I.  From  Hengist  to  Cressy.  Printed  in  1879  ;  reprinted 
1880,  1883,  1888,  1889  (twice),  1898. 

Part  II.  From  Cressy  to  Cromwell.  Printed  in  1879  ;  reprinted 
1880,  1884,  1888,  1891  (twice),  1893,  1895. 

Part  III.  From  Cromwell  to  Balaklava.  [Printed  in  1879; 
reprinted  1880  (three  times),  1884,  1887,  1891,  1895,  1896. 

A  special  School  Board  Edition,  price  is.  each  part,  printed  in 
1881. 

VII.  A  SHORT  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE   BRITISH   ISLANDS.     By  John 
Richard  Green,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  and  Alice  Stopford   Green.     With 
Maps.     Fcap.  8vo.     Pp.  xx.  416.     35.  6d. 

First  Edition  printed  in  1879;  reprinted  1880,  1884,  1888, 
1893,  1896  (with  many  alterations). 

VIII.  ESSAYS  OF  JOSEPH  ADDISON.     Chosen  and  Edited  by  John 
Richard  Green.     Post  8vo.     Pp.  xxviii.  377.     43.  6d.     Printed  in 
1880;  reprinted  1882,  1885,  1890,  1892  (25.  6d.  net),  1893,  1897, 
1898,  1899  (twice). 


SOME  AMERICAN  EDITIONS 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

1  First   Edition   in    i   volume.     Published  by   Harpers.     $1.20. 
1874-1888. 

1  See  p.  386. 


THE  WORKS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN         499 

Edition  in  5  vols.  izmo.  Published  by  American  Publishing 
Company.  $2.75. 

Edition  in  4  vols.  izmo.     Published  by  Allison.     $2.50. 

Edition  in  2  vols.  i6mo.  Published  by  Amer.  Bk.  Ex.  $1.00. 
1881. 

Edition  in  I  vol.  i6mo.  Published  by  Useful  Knowledge. 
$0.37.  1882. 

Edition  in  4  parts  410.  Published  by  Munro.  §0.20  each 
1 88o-8l. 

Edition  in  5  vols.  I2mo.      Published  by  Hurst.     $5.00.      1889. 

Edition  in  4  vols.     Published  by  Lovells.     $5.00. 

Edition  in  4  vols.  (?)      Published  by  Collier.      (?) 

An  Edition  in  two  volumes.  Published  by  Appleton  in  the 
"Hundred  Best  Books."  1899. 

[These  represent  the  first  text  of  the  Short  History,  which 
appeared  before  the  Copyright  Act.  It  should  be  noted  that 
Messrs.  Appleton,  in  their  edition  of  1899,  followed  the  well-known 
tradition  of  their  house  in  assuming  the  obligations  which  copyright 
would  have  imposed,  and  forwarded  the  first  cheque  received  from 
America  for  the  original  text  of  the  Short  History. ,] 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE. 

Revised  Edition  in  I  volume.  Published  by  Harpers.  $1.20. 
1888. 

Illustrated  Edition  in  4  volumes.  Published  by  Harper?, 
1894  and  1895. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.  In  4  volumes  8vo. 
Published  by  Harpers.  $10.00.  1878-80. 

TRANSLATIONS 

(1)  BREVE   STORIA   DEL    POPOLO    INGLESE.     Translated    by    Sofia 
Fortini-Santarelli.      I  vol.     Florence  1884.     8vo. 

(2)  HlSTOIRE  MODERNE  DU    PEUPLE  ANGLAIS  DEPUIS  LA   REVOLUTION 

JUSQU'  A  NOS  JOURS.     Translated  by  Miss  Mary  Hunt.     With  in- 
troduction by  M.  Yves  Guyot.      I  vol.     Paris  1885.     8vo. 

(3)  HISTOIRE  DU  PEUPLE  ANGLAIS.     Traduite  par  Auguste  Monod, 
et  precedee  d'une  introduction  par  Gabriel  Monod.     2  vols.      Paris 
1888.     8vo. 

(4)  GESCHICHTE  DES  ENGLISCHEN  VOLKES.     Translated  from  the 
Revised  Edition  of  1888  by  E.  Kirchner.     With  preface  by  Alfred 
Stern.     Berlin  1889.     2  vols.  8vo. 

(5)  JOHN  RICHARD  GREEN,  HISTORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE.     2 
vols.     Translated  into  Russian  by  P.  Nikolaer.      Moscow,  1891-92. 


500 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 


(6)  A  Chinese  Translation  was  planned  by  W.  Huberty  James, 
and  is  being  carried  out  under  his  supervision  by  a  Chinese,  Mr. 
Chao,  a  scholar  of  Nanking.  The  first  volume  was  completed  in 
1898.  "This  must  be  magnificent  in  English,"  the  Chinese 
writer  is  reported  to  have  said.  "  I  shall  try  to  make  it  as  good  in 
Chinese." 


ARTICLES  IN  MACMILLAWS  MAGAZINE 

October  1869.     Abbot  and  Town  :  an  unpublished  chapter  of 
English  History. 

November,  December   1869,  January    1870.     Lambeth  and  the 
Archbishops. 

September  1871.     Edward  Denison — In  Memoriam. 
October,  November  1871.     The  Early  History  of  Oxford. 
(These  were  reprinted  in  "  Stray  Studies.") 


ARTICLES  IN  THE  SATURDAY  REVIEW 

1867 

Stubbs's  Inaugural  Lec- 
ture .... 

Watch  and  Ward  at  Ox- 
ford .... 

Roman  Wall 

Tombs  at  Fontevraud 

Essays  on  Reform   . 

Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest 

Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest 

The  Curate's  Progress     .  July  6 

English  Municipal  His- 
tory (Leicester)  . 

Bishop  of  Durham  and 
his  Rural  Dean  . 

Whalley,  "de  Profundis" 

Chateau  Gaillard    . 

A  French  Professor 

Three  English  Statesmen, 

Pym,  Cromwell,  Pitt  Aug.  10 

Education  in  Early  Eng- 
land (FurnivalPs  pam- 
phlet) .  . 

Cry  of  the  Curates 


7 

1867 

British  Association  at 

'.  2 

Dundee  .  .  Sept.  14 
Ecclesiastical  Commis- 

9 
23 
3° 
16 

sions  .  .  .  14 
Donkey-racing  .  Oct.  26 
Guizot's  Barante  .  Nov.  16 
English  Municipalities  .  23 
Ffoulkes'  Christendom's 

13 
27 

r6 

Divisions    .         .         .          23 
Science  and  the  Clergy  .          30 
Palestine         Exploration 
Fund           ...          30 
Russell's  Resolutions  on 

13 

Education  .  .  30 
Platonic  Women  .  Dec.  28 

20 
20 

Pauperism  in  East  London         28 
1868 

27 
27 

Man  and  his  Master  .  Jan.  4 
East  End  Relief  Com- 

mittees      .         .         .         II 

10 

Woman  in  Orders  .  18 

Educational  Reform  .  18 

Monuments  of  West- 

17 
24 

minster  Abbey  .  .  1  8 
Woman  and  her  Critics  .  25 

THE  WORKS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN          501 


1868 

Soupers  at  the  East  End  Jan.  25 
Education  Question  .  Feb.  I 
William  Blake  (Swin- 
burne) ...  i 
^Esthetic  Women  .  .  8 
Mr.  Gladstone  on  Ecce 

Homo         ...  8 

The  Begging  Parson  .  1 5 
Gladstone  and  the  Session  15 
Papal  Women  .  .  22 
Government  and  Educa- 
tion ....  29 
Oxford  Protest  .  .  Mar.  7 
Priesthood  of  Women  .  7 

Bruce's  Education  Bill  .  21 
Future  of  Woman  .  28 

Government  and  Educa- 
tion ....         28 
Woman  and  the  World  April  1 1 
National    Documents    of 

Scotland  (Rolls)  .          18 

Pearson's  England  .          30 

The  Fading  Florence  July  18 
Kingsley's  Hermits  .  18 
New  Epitaph  of  Milton  25 

Chronicles  of  Picts  and     ' 

Scots  (Rolls)       .         .          25 
Pretty  Preachers     .          .  Aug.  i 
Buttercups      .         .         .          15 
Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest— Vol.  II.  .         .          15 
Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest— Vol.  II.  .          .          22 
Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest— Vol.  II.  .         .          29 
Man  and  hisDisenchanter         22 
Home  of  our  Angevin  Kings  Sept.  5 
Ghost  of  the  Season         .          19 
The     Literary    Goat     of 

Cardiff       ...          26 
Wayside  Thoughts  (Edu- 
cation)       ...          26 
Old  Girls       .         .         .  Oct.  3 
Benedictus  Abbas  .  3 

Historic  Study  in  France  17 
France  and  French  Poor 

Relief         ...         24 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh          .          31 


1868 

Conversion  of  England  .  Dec.  5 
Semi-detached  Wives  .  12 
Helps'  "  Columbus "  .  19 

1869 

Young  France  under  Dis- 
cipline       .          .          .  Jan.  2 
Milman's    Annals    of   S. 

Paul's         ...  2 

Benevolence  and  the  Poor  23 
Pierre  de  Langtoft  Feb.  13 

Thwaite's  Folly  (Thames 

Embankment)  .  .  20 
Longman's  Edward  III.  .  20 

•          27 

Gildas  .         .         .         April  24 
„      .         .  .  May  8 

Young  Oxford         .          .  I 

Chaucer's  England  .         29 

Municipal      History      of 

London  .  .  June  19 
Moberly's  Baeda  .  .  July  3 
St.  Edmundsbury  .  .  31 
Annals  of  Osney  and 

Wykes        .         .          .  Aug.  7 
Helps'  Pizarro         .          .          14 
First  English  "  Murray  " 
(Howell's          Foreign 
Travel)       .         .         .          21 
Baring  -  Gould's       Curi- 
osities of  Olden  Times         2 1 
Packing  Up  ...          28 
University  Reform  Sept.  4 

First  Love  .  .  .  1 8 
Hotels  in  the  Clouds  Nov.  1 3 
Freeman's  Children's  H  is- 

tory  of  England  .          20 

Troyes ....  27 
Venice  and  Torcello  Dec.  1 1 
Cobbe's  Norman  Kings  .  18 

1870 
London   of   the    Planta- 

genets  (Riley)  .  .  Jan.  i 
Morleyism  (Dissent  and 

Liberalism)         .         .  8 

Hughes'  Alfred  the  Great  Apl.  30 
Wallington's  Diary  .  May  7 
Ebbsfleet  .  .  .  14 
Pretty  Women  .  .  June  4 


502 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 


1870 

Lions  and  Lion-hunters  June  1 1 
Oxford  as  it  is  .  .  1 8 
English  Town  Gilds 

(Brentano)  .         .          25 

Falling  in  Love  .  .  July  2 
The  Parson's  Vigil  .  23 

Freeman's    Cathedral    of 

Wells  .  .  Aug.  13 
The  Doctor's  Waiting 

Room  .  .  Sept.  17 
The  House  of  Brienne  .  24 
Village  Politics  in  France  Oct.  I 
Rochester  .  .  .  8 

Cowper          .         .  Nov.  5 

1871 

Winter  Flittings  .  .  Feb.  4 
San  Remo  .  .  .11 
Italy  and  Italian  Life  .  18 
District  Visitor  .  .  Mar.  4 
The  Sermon-tub  .  .  18 
Carnival  along  the  Cornice  25 
Dino  Compagni  .  .  April  I 
England  under  the  Palms  8 

Como  .  .  .  .  15 
Angers  .  .  .  May  13 

Virgits  JEneis         .          June  10 
„      Dido.         .         .         24 
Evenings  at  Home  .  Oct.  7 

1872 

Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest, Vol.  IV.    .         .  Feb.  3 
Freeman's  Norman  Con- 
quest, Vol.  IV.    .         .          i  o 
The  Voluntary  Choir     April  20 
English  Loyalty      .          .          27 
Jackson's  Diaries     .          .          27 
Post  Cards      .         .          .  May  4 
Freeman's  English  Con- 
stitution    ...  4 


1872 

Peep  at  Spirits  .  May  1 1 
Russian  Life  .  .  .  1 1 
Umbrellas  .  .  .  18 
Jones' Conquest  of  Britain  18 
Italy  at  Work  .  .  25 
Very  far  West  indeed  .  25 
Seeing  the  Academy  .  June  I 
Creasy's  Colonial  Institu- 
tions ...  I 
Planning  Holidays  .  8 
Hermann  Agha  .  .  8 
Poetry  of  Wealth  .  .  15 
Great  Yarmouth  .  .  15 
The  National  School- 
master .  .  .  22 
Margaret,  Duchess  of 

Newcastle  .         .          22 

Children  by  the  Sea  Aug.  3 1 

A  Century  of  Bibles        .  Oct.  5 

1873 
Capri    .         .         .          Mar.  22 

Freeman's  European  His- 
tory .          .          .          .          22 
Italyand  her  Education  Bill      29 
Capri    and    its    Roman 

Remains  .  .  .  April  5 
Coral  Fishers  of  Capri  .  May  3 
Italy  and  Ancient  Art  .  24 
Priesthood  in  South  Italy  June  7 
The  Chronicles  of  Anjou  July  5 
Tristram's  Land  of 

Moab          .         .  Aug.  23 

School   History  of  Eng- 
land ....  Nov.  i 
Pilgrimage  of  the  Tiber. 
Art  at  Home  .         Dec.  20 

1874 
Pike's  History  of  Crime 

in  England          .          .Jan.  10 


The  titles  of  the  articles  collected  in  "  Stray  Studies  "  are 
printed  in  italics. 


THE  WORKS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN         503 

Green  read  papers  upon  "  Dunstan  at  Glastonbury,"  and  upon 
"  Earl  Harold  and  Bishop  Giso,"  before  the  Somerset  Archaeo- 
logical Society  in  1862  and  1863;  these  papers  were  printed  in 
the  Society's  Proceedings,  vol.  xi.  p.  122,  and  vol.  xii.  p.  148.  A 
paper  upon  the  Ban  of  Kenihvorth,  communicated  to  the  Historical 
Section  of  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Archasological  Institute  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  at  Warwick,  July  1864,  was  printed  in 
the  Archaeological  Journal,  vol.  xxi.  p.  277  ;  and  a  paper  upon 
"  London  and  her  Election  of  Stephen,"  read  at  the  London 
Congress  of  the  Archaeological  Institute  in  1866,  was  published  with 
the  other  papers  read  at  the  Congress,  in  "Old  London,"  1867. 


INDEX 


Aberdare,  Lord,  459 

A    Court,    Mrs.,    414;    letters   to    (see 

under  Letters) 
Acton,  Lord,  483 
America,  success   of  Green's   books  in, 

3.87,  395 

Anjou,  2,12. 

Arnold,  Mary   (see    Ward,   Mrs.   Hum- 
phry) 

Arnold,  Matthew,  395 

Arnold,  Thomas,  8 1 

Avignon,  398 

Ayrton,  Mr.,  201,  205 

Babington,    Mrs.    Churchill,    letter    to, 

278 

Baird,  Rev.,  49 
BSle,  214 

"Ban  of  Kenilworth,"  149,  150,  152 
Baring,    Charles,   "  Bishop   of   Durham 

and  his  Rural  Dean,"  185,  187 
Barlow,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  170 
Battle  of  Hastings,  224-26 
Beales,  Mr.,  201,  203,  204,  205 
"  Beating  the  Bounds  "  at  Oxford,  47 
"  Bishop    of    Durham    and    his    Rural 

Dean,"  185,  187 
Bismarck,  263,  273,  477 
Bordighera,  293 
Boscastle,  189 
Boulogne,  400 
Boyce,  Mrs.,  294 
Boyle,  Mr.,  191 
Brewer,  Dr.,  476 

British  Association,  41,  43,  86,  188 
Brooke,    Stopford,    Green's    friendship 

with,  70,  174,  210,  240,  328,  397  ; 

"  My  Daughters  on  the  Beach,"  207  ; 

interest    in    the    People's    Magazine, 

190  j     contributions    to    "  Primers," 

218,  449  ;  Eastern  Question,  391 
Browne,  Rawdon,  236 
Bruce,     Lady     Augusta     (see     Stanley, 

Lady  A.) 
Bruriton,  Sir  Thomas  Lauder,  394,  400, 

402 


Bryce,  James,  Green's  friendship  with, 
397,  401  ;  reminiscences  of  Green, 
213,  216  ;  essays  by,  63,  184  ;  speech 
re  E.  A.  Freeman,  251,  253,  254; 
Historical  Review  scheme,  172,  433  ; 
criticism  of  Short  History,  385;  Eastern 
Question,  441 

Burke,  T.  H.,  murder  of,  482 

Burt,  Mr.,  150 

By  water,  Mr.,  463 

Cairo,  398 

Camden,  Mr.,  146 

Cannes,  297 

Capes,  368 

Capri,  212,  217,  340-45,  347,  351,  394, 

395>  473 

Capuchins  in  Italy,  267 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  395 

Castle,  Mrs.,  Green's  aunt,  2 

Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick,  murder  of, 
392,  482 

Ceriana,  280 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  463 

"  Chateau-Gaillard,"  186,  187 

Cheel,  Charles,  grave  of,  138 

Cholera  panic,  devotion  of  Green,  55 

Church,  Dean,  318 

Church,  the,  choirs,  39,  94 

Church  Liberal  Association,  132 
Creeds,  Green's  views  on,  164 
Disestablishment,  378 
Freedom  of  thought,  139,  292 
Legal   continuity   and    the    Reforma- 
tion, 360-62 

Ministry,  109  ;  value  of  degrees,  168 
Progress  of  Christianity,  118-20 

Clark,  Sir  Andrew,  Green's  medical 
adviser,  55,  209,  238,  281,  316,  356, 

398 

Clark,  G.  W.,  237 
Clough,  A.  H.,  107 
Colenso,  Bishop,  154 
Coleridge,  Sir  John,  368 
Colvin,  Sidney,  321 
Conquest  of  England,  401,  478 


506 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 


Cook,  John  Douglas,  65,  177,  185,  189 
Coope,  Mr.,  201,  205 
Cox,  Rev.  Sir  George  William,  154 
Coxhead,  Mr.,  83,  112 
Cranborne,  Lady,  185 
Creeds,  Green's  views  on,  164 
Creighton,  Bishop,  68,  218,  483 
Creighton,  Mrs.,  marriage  of,  68;  letters 

to  (see  under  Letters) 
Cromwell,  376 

Curates  at  Stepney  described,  163 
Curates'  Clerical  Club,  162 
Customs  duties  in  early  English  history, 

IS7 

Daubeney,  Mr.,  73 

Dawkins,   Professor   W.    Boyd,   Green's 

friendship  with,    14,  22,   76  ;   letters 

to  (see  under  Letters) 
Denison,    Edward,    Green's    friendship 

with,    56,     191  ;    elected    M.P.    i"or 

Newark,  205  ;  Green's  paper  on,  306 ; 

letters  to  (see  under  Letters) 
Deutsch,  Emmanuel,  68,  290 
Dicey,  Professor,  424 
Dickenson,  Mr.,  143,  174,  252 
Disraeli,  447 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  194,  228-30 
Dobbs,  A.  E.,  82,  90 
Dowden,  Professor,  218,  449 
Drayson,  Captain,  89 
Druid,  the,  61,  101 
Du  Chaillu,  Paul,  85,  87 
Duff,  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant,  395,  428, 

459.  463 
Dupaty,  Baron,  379 

Earle,  Professor,  380 
Eastern  Question  (see  Politics) 
Eastern  Question  Association,  390 
Edinburgh,    degree  of  LL.D.    conferred 

on  Green,  394 
Education,  national,  171 
Egypt,  journey  to,  398 
Elections,  Green's  comments  on,  195 
Ellis,  A.  J.,  403 
"English,"    when    the    word    was    first 

used,  431-33 
Evans,  Mr.,  422 

Falconer,  Dr.,  42,  109 

Farrar,  Canon,  467 

Ferguson,  Mr.,  77 

Fire  in  London  described,  83 

Fishing  party  described,  26 

Flogging  at  school,  6,  10 

Florence,  212,  307,  322,  326,  328,  394, 

395 

Forster,  W.  E.,  392 
Fowle,  Rev.,  130 


France  and  Franco-German  War,  257, 
259-66,  273,  283,  288,  298,  325 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  Green's  friendship  with, 
10,  62,  98,  397  ;  reminiscences  of 
Green,  214  ;  tour  abroad  with  Green, 
212,  307-309  ;  D.C.L.  degree  con- 
ferred upon,  253  ;  re  "  Hobart  Pasha," 
458  ;  letters  to  (see  under  Letters) 

Freemantle,  Rev.  W.  H.,  1 1 1 

Frogs  at  Cannes,  297 

Froude,  Anthony,  239,  242,  273,  315 

Furnivall,  Frederick  James,  449 

Gairdner,  James,  407,  477 

Gardiner,  S.  Rawson,    411,    425,   476, 

477 

Garibaldi,  Green's  visit  to,  414 
Cell,  Rev.  Philip,  51,  54,  135 
Gell,  Philip  Lyttleton,  reminiscences  of 

Green,  54 
Genoa,  272 

"  Geography  of  the  British  Isles,"  395 
Geology,  22,  41,  42-44,  74,  82,  126 
Germany,  Green's  visit  to,  212 
"Gildas,"  232 

Giles,  Rev.  John  Allen,  144,  145 
Gladstone,    218,    257,    409,    441,    447, 

459,  480 

Glehn,  Mr.  von,  68 

Glehn,  Louise  von  (see  Creighton,  Mrs.) 
Glehn,  Olga  von  (see  under  Letters) 
Goschen,    George    J.,    220,    297,    299, 

395 

Grant,  General,  467 
Green,  Adelaide  (sister),  2 
Green,  Annie  (sister),  2 
Green,  John  (uncle),  2 
Green,  John  Richard — 

Childhood,     i  ;    school    life,     2-13  ; 
college   life,  13-20;  degrees  taken, 
13,    14;    location    of    rooms,     15 
(note) 
Career — 

Choice  of,  20;  ordination,  51; 
curacy  under  Rev.  H.  Ward,  51, 
52-54,  285  ;  charge  of  parish  at 
Hoxton,  51,  54,  121,  123,  124, 
130  ;  curacy  under  Rev.  P.  Gell, 
51,  54,  135  ;  mission  curate  and 
incumbent  at  Stepney,  51,  55, 
142,  159  ;  offers  of  preferment, 
in  -  13,  139;  professor  at 
Queen's  College,  Harley  Street, 
185  ;  degrees  and  honours,  13, 
14,  90,  388  (note)  ;  appointment 
as  librarian  at  Lambeth,  and 
close  of  clerical  career,  209, 
223,  227,  232,  461  ;  review  of, 

51-59 
Marriage  with  Miss  Alice  Stopford,  392 


INDEX 


507 


Green,  John  Richard — continued. 

Health,  51,  66,  68,  180,   209,   212, 

394-401  5    last    illness    and    death, 

402 
Intellectual    characteristics,   67,   213, 

384-90,  397 
Letters — 

"A.  Court,  Mrs.,  315,  320,  329,  333, 

353 

Arnold,  Miss  Mary  (see  Ward,  Mrs. 
Humphry) 

B.    on    occupying    Green's    college 
rooms,  27 

Babington,  Mrs.  Churchill,  278 

Creighton,  Mrs.,  240-42,  267,  274, 
284,  287,  447 

Dawkins,  Professor  W.  Boyd — 
"Ban  of  Kenilworth,"  152 
Battle   Church,  Dawkins'   paper 

on,  1 08 

"  Beating  the  Bounds,"  etc.,  46-48 
British  Association  meetings,  41, 

86 

Church  controversy,  80,  109,  139 
Church  Liberal  Association,  132 
Christianity,  progress  in,  118-20 
Druid,  the,  101 
Fire  in  London  described,  83 
Geology,  40,  42-45,  74,  8 1 
Haweis'  sermon,  204 
History  of  England  scheme,  102- 

104,  105,  107 

Hoxton  life,  121,  122,  124,  130 
Italy,  Green's  life  in,  268,  280, 

3*5 

Letter  writing,  36-39 
Liberal  religious  paper  proposed, 

161 

Librarian  appointment,  231,  232 
Marriage,  136-38 
Maurice,  F.  D., sermon  by,  128-30 
People's  Magazine,  189 
Preferment    offered    to     Green, 

111-13 

Privy  Council  judgment,  139, 142 
Stepney  life,  142,  143,  159 
Street  girls'  meeting,  132 
Thackeray's  grave,  138 
Various   topics,   29-34,  45,  72, 

77,  79,  84,  87-95,  I0°,  IX3' 

17,  123-27,  133-36,  148,  156- 

59,  162.  188-90,  226,  244-46 
Victoria  Park,  147 
Ward,  Mrs.,  death  of,  96,  97 
Denison,   Edward  ;    elections,   195, 
20 1,   203,  205  ;    various    topics, 
204-206 
Freeman,  E.  A. — 

Archaeology  of  Rome,  by  Parker, 

373-75 


Green,  John  Richard — continued. 
Letters — 

Freeman,  E.  A. — 

Athentsum,  attack  on,  228-30 

"  Ban  of  Kenilworth,"  149 

Creeds,  164 

Degrees,  value  of,  for  the  clergy, 
168 

D.C.L.  degree  conferred  on  Free- 
man, 253 

"English"  question,  381,  431-33 

Franco  -  German   War,   259-66, 
273,  298 

Historic    Ccurse   fir    Schools,     by 
Freeman,  303-305,  339 

Historical  and  Architectural  Essays, 

429,  437 

"  Historical  Readers,"  477 
History,  methods  of  writing,  425  j 

obtaining  materials  for,  144 
History  of  the  English  People,  409, 

412,  471 

Jesus  College,  166 
Librarian  appointment,  224,  227, 

228 

Lincoln,  Green's  visit  to,  194 
Literary  work  (Green's)  various, 

172,  180,  182,  186,  192,  317, 

443,  444,  478 
Making  of  England,  481 
Memorials  of  Westminster  Abbey, 

190 

National  education,  170 
Norman  Conquest,  179,  184,  197- 

99,  200,  220-22,  226,  301 
Old  English  History  for  Children, 

237 

Pardon,  G.  F.,  160 
"Primers,"  249-51,  474 
"  Reformation,"  the,  etc.,  360-62 
Short  History,  234-37,  255,  258, 

3J4,  357-59.  375,  4°7>  4*° 
Sources  of  Standard  English,  403- 

405 
Stubbs,    Dr.,    inaugural    lecture, 

174-78 
Travels    in   Italy,   272,   293-99, 

322,335-38,363,414-18,473 
Various    topics,    135,    154,   155, 

156,  165,  174,  231,  233,  238, 

240,  247,  252-55,  282,  305, 

33o»  345-5°.  356>  378,422-24, 
428-30,  440 
Glehn,  Louise  von  (see  Creighton, 

Mrs.) 

Glehn,  Miss  Olga  von,  218,  270, 
277,  285,  289-93,  3°6,  354,  365- 
69,  373,  380,  406,  419, 424,  460 
M.  J.,  39 
M.  M.,  25,  75 


508 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 


Green,  John  Richard — continued. 
Letters — 

Macmillan,  Alexander,   318;    His- 
torical Re-view,  433*37 
Norgate,  Miss  Kate,  448,  470 
Ridgway,  Rev.  J.,  23 
Stanley,  Dean,  17 
Stopford,  Miss  Alice,  445,  449-60, 

462-70 
T.  O.,  24 

Taylor,  Rev.  Isaac,  187,  327 
Ward,    Mr.    and    Mrs.    Humphry, 

311,   342,  350,  413,  439,   480, 

483 
Literary  Work — 

"Ban   of  Kenilworth,"    149,    150, 

152 
"  Bishop  of  Durham  and  his  Rural 

Dean,"  185,  187 

British  Association,  article  on,  188 
"Chateau-Gaillard,"  186,  187 
Conquest  of  England,  401,  478 
Denison,  E.,  paper  on,  306 
Druid,  the,  article  in,  61,  101 
Edivard  III.,  by  Longman,  review 

of,  227 
"  Geography  of  the  British  Isles," 

395 

"  Gildas,"  article  on,  232 
"Historical  Readers,"  477 
History,    best    method    of  writing, 

425-27 
History  of  Angevin  Kings,  materials 

collected  for,  387 
History    of  England,     by     Pearson, 

review  of,  193 
History  of  the  English    People,    386, 

394,  395,  396,  4QQ,  4",   438, 

441,  443,  458,  463,  471 
List  of  published  works,  497-503 
Making  of  England,  399,  400,  482 
Memorials  of  Westminster  Abbey,  by 

Stanley,  review  of,  190 
Norman     Conquest,     by      Freeman, 

review  of,  184,  197-99 
"  Oxford    in    the    Last    Century," 

article  on,  19 
Poor  relief,  article  on,  56 
Primers  edited  by  Green,  217,  249- 

51,  449,  469  (and  note],  474 
"St.  Dunstan,"  62,  75,  98 
"  St.    Edmundsbury,"    article     on, 

233 
Short    History,    209-12,    250,    253, 

255,  258,  3°6>  3X4,  32g,   33°, 

331,     357-59,    38°,     384-88, 

407,   411,  414,    420,   453-57, 

459,  463 

Stanley,    Dean,    influence    of,    on 
Green's  work  in  early  life,  18 


Green,  John  Richard — continued. 
Literary  Work — 

Stray  Studies  from  England  and 
Italy,  320,  427-29 

Stubbs,  Bishop,  review  of  inaugural 
lecture  by,  174 

"Tombs  at  Fontevraud,"  181,  182 

Various  literary  schemes,  61-68, 
73,  88,  94,  95,  102-104,  105, 
107,  152,  161,  217,  317,  356, 
364,  388,  444,  455  ;  Historical 
Review,  173,  217,  234,  246, 

255,433-37 
"Watch    and    Ward    at    Oxford," 

170 

"  Whalley,  De  Profundis,"  185,  187 
Pecuniary  position,  58,  65,  135,  203, 

387 

Religious  views,  9,  n,  12,  18,  68-72 
118-20,  164,  (see  Travels  in  Italy; 
(see  Italy),  also  Church) 
Green,  Mrs.  J.  R.,  392,  396,  398,  400- 
402,    478  ;    letters   to    (see    Stopford, 
Alice,  under  Letters) 
Green,  Richard,  Green's  father,  i,  2,  3 
Green,  Richard,  Green's  brother,  2 
Greenhill,  Dr.  W.  A.,  226 
Grove,  Sir  George,  68,   188,  255,  258, 

290,  449 

Guest,  Dr.,  65,  151,  235 
Guest,  Lady  C.,  167 

Halcombe,  Mr.,  414 

Hampden,    A.    C.     Hobart    ("  Hobart 

Pasha"),  458 
Harcourt,  424 
Hardy,  Sir  Thomas  Duffus,    143,   144, 

146,  223 
Hare,  Mrs.,  134 
Harper,  Messrs.,  387,  453 
Hartshorne,  Charles  Henry,  149 
Hastings,  221,  224-26 
Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R.,  56,  70,  204,  290 
Hawkins,  Edward,  368 
Higgs,  Mr.,  202, 
"  Historical  Readers,"  477 
History,  ancient  and  modern,    174-77  ; 

methods    of  writing,   425  ;  obtaining 

materials  for,  144 
History  of  the  English  People  (see  Literary 

Work,  under  Green,  J.  R.) 
"Hobart  Pasha,"  458 
Home  Rule,  391 
Hook,  Dean,  143,  149 
Hope,  Beresford,  189 
Howard,  George,  459,  460 
Hoxton,  Green's  parish  in,  51,  54,  121, 

123,  124,  130 
Hughes,  Rev.  N.  T.,  117 
Hunt,  W.  Holman,  68 


INDEX 


509 


Hunt,  Rev.  W.,  172 

Hurdis,  Professor,  I 

Hutton,  Mr.,  184 

Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  44,  242 

Ireland,  34-36,  37,  391,451 
Italy,  progress  of,  etc.,  283,  349 
Italy,  travels  in — 

Bordighera,  293 

Capri,  212,  217,  340-345,  347,  351, 

394,  395,  473 
Ceriana,  280 
Florence,  212,   307,   322,    326,  328, 

394,  395 
Genoa,  272 
Mentone,  291,  296,  395,  400-402, 

482 

Milan,  272,  413 
Naples,  212 
Padua,  413 
Rapallo,  395 
Ravenna,  212,  215,  307 
Rome,  212,  333-338,  353,  363,  394, 

416-418 

San  Remo,  212,  307,  343 
Siena,  413,  415 
Venice,  212,  307,  395 
Ventimiglia,  294 
Verona,    236,    269,    307,    395,   413, 

415 

Jebb,  Sir  Richard  C.,  218,  449 

Jenkins,  J.  E.,  440 

Jesus  College,  Oxford,  13-20,  62,  166 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  5 

Jones,  Burne,  460 

Jones,  Rev.  Harry,  162 

Jowett,  Professor,  142,  424 

Kensington  Park,  135 

Kensington    Square,    Green's    home  in, 

396 

Kershaw,  Mr.,  223 
Kingsley,  Rev.  Charles,  201,  315,  423 
Kirkham,  Lanes.,  12 

Lambert,  Rev.  Brooke,  265,  266,  401 

Leamington,  13 

Lear,  Edward,  289,  290 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  397 

Leighton,  Sir  Baldwyn,  57 

Letter-writing,  36 

Letters  by  Green  (see  under  Green,  J.  R.) 

Lewis,  Sir  G.  C.,  158 

Lincoln,  194 

Literary  work  by  Green  (see  under  Green, 

J.R.) 

Local  Government  Bill,  297,  299 
Loftie,  Mr.,    reminiscences    of    Green, 

213 


Longley,  Archbishop,  223 

Longman,  Mr.,  Edward  III.,  227 

Lord,  Francis,  292 

Lowe,  Robert,  368 

Lower,  Mark  Anthony,  72 

Lushington,  424 

Luxor,  398 

LyelL,  Sir  Charles,  41,  44,  86 

Lytton,  Lord,  463 

Macmillan,  Alexander,  kindness  and 
friendship  of,  209,  210,  217,  2 1 8, 
393'  394,  4°°,  402  i  Green's  com- 
ments on,  95,  178,  179  ;  discussing 
schemes  of  work  for  Green,  151,  173, 
217,  231,  256,  258;  financial  terms 
re  Short  History,  240  ;  letters  to  (tee 
under  Letters) 

Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  5 

Maguire,  Rev.  Robert,  162,  163 

Mahaffy,  Professor,  218,  414,  416 

Maine,  Sir  Henry  J.  S.,  397,  423 

Making  of  England,  399,  400,  482 

Mallet,  Sir  Louis,  395 

Manning,  Cardinal,  466 

Mantell,  Gideon  Algernon,  72 

Margate,  123-127 

Markham,  Clements  R.,  421 

Marriage,  views  on,  31,  47,  136-138 

Maurice,  Rev.  F.  D.,  21,  70,  109,  128- 
130 

Mentone,  291,  296,  395,  400-402,  482 

Merivale,  Herman,  155 

Milan,  272,  413 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  273 

Millard,  Dr.,  9 

Minster-in-Thanet,  243-245 

Monks,  etc.,  in  Italy,  267 

Monod,  Gabriel,  264 

Moore,  C.,  43 

Moore,  Norman,  451 

Morley,  John,  386,  420 

Morris,  William,  390,  440 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  413  ;  death  of, 
467 

Moz ley,  Canon,  n,  393 

Miiller,  Max,  290,  423,  449 

Murchison,  86 

"  My  Daughters  on  the  Beach,"  207 

Naples,  212 

Napoleon  I.  and  Italy,  349 

Napoleon  III.  (see  Franco-German  War) 

Navestock,  Essex,  148 

"  New  Historical  School,"  466 

Newton,  Mr.,  201,  203,  205 

Nichol,  Professor,  449 

Norgate,  Miss  Kate,  letters  to,  448,  470 

Normandy,  212 

Nottidge,  Mrs.,  147 


LETTERS  OF  J.  R.  GREEN 


Notting  Hill,  Green's  curacy  in,  51,  54, 
135 

Oakeley,  Canon,  368 
O'Hagan,  Lord,  463 
Oliphant,  Laurence,  395 
Oliphant,  T.  L.  Kington,  403-405 
Owen,  Professor  Richard,  189 
Owen,  Sidney,  169,  191 
Owen,  Rev.  Trevor,  85,  95,  158 
Oxford  Historical  Society,  218 
"Oxford  in  the  Last  Century,"  19 

Padua,  413 

Palgrave,  Frank,  153,  239,  371 
Pardon,  George  Frederick,  160,  161 
Parish  duties,  54-59,  75 
Parker,  John  Henry,  94,  373-375,  416, 

41? 

Pattison,  Rev.  Mark,  77 
Pauli,  Professor  Reinhold,  378,  425 
Pearson,  C.  H.,  184,  193 
Peile,  Dr.,  218 
Pembroke,  Lord,  320 
Pevensey,  221,  226 
Phillips,  Mr.,  94 
Politics,  Green's  interest  in,  390  ;  Eastern 

question,  440,  459,   460,  464,  472  ; 

Birmingham    School,    466 ;    Liberal 

party  and  elections,  479,  480  (see  also 

Gladstone) 

Poor  relief,  187,  205,  220 
Portsmouth,  Lord,  395 
Preaching  and  public  speaking,  58,  168 
Primers  edited   by  Green    (see    Literary 

Work  under  Green,  J.  R.) 
Privy  Council  Judgment,  139,  142,  148 
Proverbs,  24 

Radstock,  Lord,  173 

Rapallo,  395 

Ravenna,  212,  215,  307 

Ridgway,  Rev.  J.  R.,    12,   in;   letter 

to,  23 
Robertson,    Rev.   James   Craigie,    144, 

H5 

Rolleston,  Mr.,  72 
Rome,  212,   333-338,   353,    363,    394, 

416-418 

Romilly,  Lord,  144,  223 
Roundell,  Mr.,  450 
Routh,  Rev.  Martin  Joseph,  5,  6  (and 

note) 

Ruskin,  John,  246,  248 
Rutson,  Mr.,  184 

"St.  Dunstan,"  62,  75,  98 
"St.  Edmundsbury,"  233 
Samuda,  Mr.,  201,  205 
San  Remo,  212,  307,  343 


I    Sandford,  Mr.,  98 

Sandwith,  Humphrey,  444,  446 
School  children's  fresh  air  treat,  85,  86, 

196 
Schools,  system  in  1867,  1715  difficulty 

of  getting  money  for,  204 
Seeley,  Sir  John,  247,  248,  449 
Selborne,  Lord,  395 
Sermon  on  Mrs.  Ward,  485-95 
Sermon  preaching  and   public  speaking, 

58,  168 

Sevenoaks,  306 
Shaftesbury,  Lord,  273 
Short   History    of  England   (see    Literary 

Work  under  Green,  J.  R.) 
Sidgwick,  Henry,  424 
Siena,  413,  415 
Sitwell,  Rev.,  243 

Smith,  Professor  Goldwin,  184,  446 
Smith,  Henry,  424 
Smith,  Sir  William,  234 
Smythe,    Percy    (Viscount    Strangforci), 

death  of,  219 
Somerset  Archaeological  Association,  62, 

88,98 
Stanley,  Dean  Arthur  Penrhyn,  16,  81, 

93,  130,  134,  190,  191,  446,  467 
Stanley,  Lady  Augusta,  16,  190,  191 
Stephen,  Fitz-James,  424,  466 
Stephen,  Leslie,  409 
Stepney,  curacies  in,  51,  55,  142,  159 
Stopford,   Miss    Alice,    392  ;    letters    to 

(see  under   Letters)  5    (see   also    Green, 

Mrs.  J.  R.) 

Stopford,  Archdeacon,  36  (note),  392 
Strachey,  Mr.,  252 
Strangford,  Lord,  death  of,  219 
Stray  Studies  from  England  and  Italy,  320, 

427-29 

Street  girls'  meeting,  132 
Stubbs,  Bishop,   172,  315,   385  ;  friend- 
ship for  Green,  63,   148,   397,  422  ; 

librarian  at  Lambeth,  144,  145,  228  ; 

librarian  to  Archbishop  Longley,  223  ; 

appointed    Professor  of  Modern   His- 
tory at  Oxford,  174-78 
Sweet,  Mr.,  442 
Switzerland,  212,  237 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  395 

Tait,  Archbishop,  22  ;  kindness  to 
Green,  51,  139,  231,  281,  461  ; 
created  archbishop,  51,  223 

Taylor,  Canon,  395,  396 

Taylor,  Rev.  Isaac,  letters  to,  187,  327 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  visit  to,  393 

Thackeray,  grave  of,  138 

Theale,  Somerset,  22 

Thorpe,  Benjamin,  144 

"Tombs  at  Fontevraud,"  181,  182 


INDEX 


511 


Troyes,  214 

Tuam,  Bishop  of,  134 

Venables,  Bishop,  223,  317 

Venice,  212,  307,  395 

Venn,  Mr.,  424 

Ventimiglia,  294 

Verona,  307,  395,413,  415 

Victoria  Park,  147 

Voysey  judgment,  280,  291,  295 

Wallace,  Mackenzie,  4,  46 
Ward,  Rev.  Henry,  49,  51 
Ward,  Mrs.  Henry,  52,  87,  96-98  (and 

;:ote),    99,    loo ;    Green's   sermon  on, 

59,  485-495 
Ward,    Mr.    and    Mrs.    Humphry,    8 1, 

277,  308,  312,  401  j  reminiscences  of 


Green,  53,  217,  389,   397;  letters  to 
(see  under  Letters) 
Ward,  Professor,  217,  433,  435 

Warren,  John  Byrne,  Leicester,  263 
"  Watch  and  Ward  at  Oxford,"  170 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  10 
Welsh  nation  and  character,  24,  28,  62, 

166 

"Whalley,  De  Profundis,"  185,  187 
Whalley,  G.  H.,  1 86 
Wilberforce,  Bishop,  44 
Wilkins,  Mr.,  449 
Williams,  Dr.  Rowland,  139,  142 
Wilson,  Rev.  Henry  Bristow,  139,  142 


Yonge,  Charles  Duke,  13 
Yonge.  Miss  Charlotte  M., 


449 


THE    END 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLAUK,  LIMITED,  Edinburgh 


